Billboard downtime

We all have our downtime. Often it can include wearing sweats or t-shirt and shorts, or more popularly and oddly, we'll wear a onesie. Day to day we're in Sunday best, suited and booted, save for the odd dress-down Friday or away-day. Some of us of course only feel at our best when we're fully designered or dressed to the nines. It boils down to the emergency shop - we need to nip to Tesco in the car - pjs as some, onesie for others, or smart-casual. In short, our downtime still has its have-to-look-presentable moments.

I saw this billboard today. There's long-term building work nearby, but it makes me sad to see the media in a state of distress. I'm ok if there's downtime, a day where there's no ad changeover, where the billboard has no make up, it's hair in a bun and loud joggies or a penguin onesie. This is different. This is neglect, abandonment, impoverishment. Like Metros on the floor beside you, like the wrong phone number in the mag ad, dead air on the radio ad break, it's about standards. Think about how we feel when we see a typo in our own Prezi, the Excel column doesn't add up. It's not great. Like the school report said - mine, not yours. Must do better.

Advertising is art and science, persuasion and temptation, beauty and horror, wondrous and more wondrous. I love it, and as the crooner puts it, for all it's faults I love it still. Just wish they'd put an ad up. The billboard needs its party outfit.