Watch this space

It can be hard to shut Homer Simpson up, but São Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab did it. In August, Fox Films and Brazil’s Gol Airlines decked out the fuselage of a Boeing 737 with Homer adhesives to promote The Simpsons Movie. But since the plane was scheduled to fly over municipal airspace, city hall nixed the campaign under its new Clean City Law that bans outdoor advertising and severely limits storefront signs. As a result, the airspace above São Paulo is a Homer-free zone.

In fact, much of this teeming metropolis of 11 million people is now ad-free. Implemented gradually over the past year, the Clean City Law targets almost all forms of external advertising, including ads on planes and blimps as well as those adorning the 12,000 legally registered billboards and untold thousands of unregistered placards that dot the city. The removal of what Mayor Kassab calls “visual pollution” has exposed both the beauty and beastliness of Brazil’s bustling business capital. For the first time in decades, the ornate facades of old downtown buildings have been revealed in all their glory; On the other hand, the slums, or favelas, that line the expressways are no longer hidden behind gaudy billboards.

Residents of São Paulo seem to like what they are seeing—or not seeing, as the case may be. Some 73 percent approve of the law, and 54 percent think the city is a better place for it. Even many merchants and executives who were forced to change the layout of their storefronts have come to endorse the overall effect. “The visual cleanup of the urban environment has contributed to the well-being of residents,” says António Freitas, general director of Drogasil, a pharmacy chain that revamped all the signs adorning its establishments. Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters, the Canadian anti-advertising magazine, hailed the law as “a seminal phenomenon,” expressing hope that it could become “a catalyst in a backlash that may lead somewhere.” At this, Mayor Kassab beams. “Time has shown that the city wanted this law.”

Opponents of outdoor advertising should not start celebrating just yet, though. Kassab plans to re-introduce public advertising on municipally owned structures like public clocks and bus stops. “I’m not against advertising,” he says. “I’m in favour of it. I’m just against all this disgusting paraphernalia. There will be a second stage when the prices for outdoor advertising will be very high. We’ll be able to generate revenues.” The mayor also appears disinclined to allow the city to lose the frenetic energy that compels Brazilians to compare São Paulo to New York. “We’ll have in São Paulo some areas along the lines of Times Square.”

If proponents of the Clean City Law lack utopian vision, the law’s passage is nonetheless a revealing case study in how to improve the quality of urban life. When Kassab became mayor in 2006, he made quality-of-life issues, including the environment, one of his priorities. “We want to reduce pollution in all forms—noise, air, water and visual,” he says. “We started with visual pollution, which is the easiest to deal with.”

São Paulo already had fairly stringent regulations on outdoor advertising and signage, but they were rarely enforced. Instead of sending out the sign cops, though, Kassab passed a new law. The effect was dramatic. Many billboards were disassembled. Others remain blank; though the billboards are protected by court orders obtained by the owners, advertisers are unwilling to buck city hall. Whole sides of downtown buildings near thoroughfares had been painted with lingerie ads; they now are a stark grey. Commercial districts once characterized by loud storefront signs have been cleaned out to reveal decaying facades. “Other attempts didn’t work,” says Hélio Silva, professor of communications and marketing at the Catholic University of São Paulo. “Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to go to extremes.”

Advertisers thought Kassab went too far. Their consensus argument had less to do with freedom of speech, though, than with freedom to do business. “The Kassab law is unconstitutional,” says Raul Nogueira Filho, president of the Billboard Union, an association of billboard owners. “The federal constitution states that you cannot prohibit a legally registered company from operating.” Some suggest, quietly, that the mayor just wants to set up a monopoly on outdoor advertising revenue.

Like the Billboard Union, the U.S.-based multinational Clear Channel has filed a lawsuit to overturn the Clean City law based on the economic freedom argument. Indeed, Clear Channel has won a court order that allows it to continue posting billboards, but that hasn’t done the company much good. “Most people have kept an arm’s length,” says Emilio Medina, president of the company’s Brazilian subsidiary. “Nobody dares to go up against the public power.” Leading billboard companies claim they have always favoured more stringent control and the elimination of unregistered billboards. “We were one of the first companies to defend regulation,” says Medina. “Visual communication was abusive in São Paulo. Nobody wants excess, but nobody wants prohibition either.”

One individual who confronted the law head-on is New York-based Brazilian photographer and artist Vik Muniz. He returned to his hometown and threw up 10 artistic billboards around the city in defiance of the law. “There are so many architectural gaffes of a galactic magnitude in São Paulo,” he told Veja São Paulo, a local magazine. “To suppress the use of images is like trying to cure a cancer with a medicinal plaster.”

If some companies are complaining, others are scrambling for competitive advantage—often in unexpected places. Focussed direct-mail campaigns are picking up, especially by smaller neighbourhood merchants forced to reduce the size of their storefront signage, says Dieter Brandt, president of the local association for the printing supply industry. Potential renters are increasingly contacting real estate firms since they can no longer make out the phone numbers on the little “For Rent” signs in front of buildings. The companies with the best brand-name recognition are doing the best; with the signs so much harder to read, potential renters are calling the firms with familiar names. Even paint manufacturers hope to sell more paint. “A city that looks better encourages people to take better care of their properties,” says Dilson Ferreira, executive president of the Brazilian Association of Paint Manufacturers.

Companies like Drogasil and McDonald’s have transformed the requirement to change their storefront signage into a competitive advantage. The Drogasil chain, which sported several different styles around town, took the opportunity to consolidate and modernize its brand image. The Brazilian branch of McDonald’s, which already had a corporate directive to demonstrate a more subtle image, incorporated the new restrictions into the overall redesign of their fast-food restaurants. “Before, the biggest signs won,” says Frank Siciliano, architect and partner in Todescan Siciliano Arquitetura, the company responsible for the McDonald’s redesign in Brazil. “Now the best signs win.”

It remains unclear whether the Clean City Law will really clean up São Paulo—not the least because the mayor has yet to define stage two of the program, and because federal courts still must rule on the lawsuits filed by billboard owners. So far, the effect on many residential areas has been soothing, even though people often drive right by the restaurant or shop they are looking for because signs are so discreet. It is too soon to know whether the newly revealed but crumbling facades will be spruced up. If so, São Paulo could truly get a facelift and become a more pleasant place to live. But if city officials reinstate advertising under municipal control, the larger effect might merely be to transfer revenues from the private to the public sector. Such a move would put a big dent in São Paulo’s reputation as a bustling, business-friendly city.

But Mayor Kassab’s ban has engendered a heated debate about visual pollution that extends well beyond São Paulo. What would Homer Simpson have to say about that?

Bill Hinchberger is founding editor of the online guide BrazilMax.com.