The director of Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock, is back with a new film out in the UK in October 2011 - “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”. This time he’s turned his attention to the marketing industry as he sets out to fund a film purely through product placement. In his interview with the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/jun/09/morgan-spurlock-sheffield-doc-fest-video) as part of the Sheffield Doc/Fest, Spurlock points to his team’s visit to Sao Paolo in Brazil during filming.

Around six years ago Sao Paolo introduced a clean city bill, which saw it outlaw all forms of outdoor advertising – from billboards to ads on buses. The city’s transformation has been remarkable, with crime rates falling off a cliff and everyone taking much more responsibility for, and pride in, their environment. But Sao Paolo is an extreme example, and to my mind Spurlock’s reference to all outdoor advertising as being visual pollution in the video link above is doing a huge disservice to the outdoor sector.

It’s important to be saying these things and presenting these issues, but for me outdoor advertising creates noise, interruption and discussion in a positive manner… and, of course, it depends where you live. I can only speak from my experience within the UK, but I do think that outdoor media adds to advertising in this country. But then we don’t have the same social issues as Brazil.

Billboards are recognised to have produced some of the most discussed ads ever. If you look at the top 100 ads of all time, around 25% are billboard – including the number one – Eva Herzigova’s Wonderbra ad. This shows that as an advertising medium it works. People look at outdoor, and they discuss outdoor. It’s part of our society.

On top of this, people need to remember that once a poster is up, that isn’t job done for the outdoor companies – they pay for the sites and the maintenance of them, and often the land around them.  In my view, advertisers wouldn’t want to place their billboard ad on a tatty-looking site, as it reflects badly on the brand. By maintaining the site, outdoor companies contribute quite a lot back to the community. Who would pay for the upkeep of bus shelters, for example, if money didn’t come in from outdoor companies? The answer is, of course, the tax payer.

Standards and quality within outdoor media vary hugely across the globe. A couple of years ago I did a lot of travelling in India and Thailand and, being in the industry I’m in, I paid quite a bit of attention to the outdoor media. And the two most notable things were the lack of quality and the lack of restriction. A lot of cities just seem to be a free for all when it comes to outdoor sites and that combined with the poor quality of the ads both in terms of printing and creative does indeed create clutter – and arguably that doesn’t work for anyone.

What I do believe is missing, however, in a number of countries is regulation and respect for the environment around the site. I would argue that it’s not an outright ban on outdoor media that cities need to consider but tighter controls on the amount and quality of the advertising that is displayed.