Beach Billboards

June 28, 2005 11:20 AM

Beach Billboards"5,000 of your beach sponsoring ads coupled with "Please Don't Litter" are impressed during early morning cleaning leaving the beach manicured with your message all over it". Support-A-Beach Programs - Do you want to stroll on such clean beaches?
posted by webmeta (54 comments total)

Geez, is there no where advertising won't creep?
posted by agregoli at 11:23 AM on June 28, 2005

These beach ads aren't exactly new. It's funny, cos I consider ads like this to be visual litter. Oh well.
posted by keswick at 11:25 AM on June 28, 2005

yeah. that's hideous. talk about baby with the bathwater.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:28 AM on June 28, 2005

I don't terribly mind these...if they were adding anything to the beach (even safe dyes, whatever), I'd be freaking out. Just pressing sand...that I can live with for a good cause.

And I live 200 metres from a sandy beach.
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:30 AM on June 28, 2005

I would spend my mornings intentionally messing up as many of the ads as I possibly could to make for an ad-free beach for others.

Its a nice idea but part of the attraction of the beach is the lack of ads and lack of commercial intrusions.
posted by fenriq at 11:35 AM on June 28, 2005

Nice free market hack. The question is: will you pay fees for "no ad" private beaches?
posted by rush at 11:38 AM on June 28, 2005

Though I should note that images pressed into the sand are pretty harmless considering.
posted by fenriq at 11:42 AM on June 28, 2005

Wow - this is sort of like those Jesus Sandals... except a little less disturbing.
posted by wfrgms at 11:49 AM on June 28, 2005

Ack! I wanna see the equipment that can produce these at "2000-5000" a day! They are very vague about what exactly creates these. I'm very very curious!
posted by Sir Mildred Pierce at 11:51 AM on June 28, 2005

As a 10th level marketing demon, I wholeheartedly endorse this. Advertising may be displeasing to you, but it is preferential to pestilence carrying flies breeding in the garbage strewn across our sands, or perforated arches in the soles of our children's feet from broken liquor bottles.
posted by jonson at 11:52 AM on June 28, 2005

I'm sure this will be popular in Daytona Beach. First corporate customer? (wait for it....) Tide!
posted by hal9k at 11:52 AM on June 28, 2005

Destroy the beach to save it.
posted by iamck at 11:57 AM on June 28, 2005

I'd be mighty upset if my public beaches were stamped with private advertising.

I'd be perfectly happy to see a less-frequent stamping of "Do Not Litter", though. Say one stamp every ten or so feet.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:06 PM on June 28, 2005

This makes Baby Cart Cheat cry.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:14 PM on June 28, 2005

Oh god, no.
posted by rafter at 12:23 PM on June 28, 2005

I'd rather lay on this than the used condom cigarette butt filter old cardboard potporri you find around Lake Michigan.
(Littering is bad, but tossing your trash into your drinking water is a sign your species must die)
posted by Smedleyman at 12:41 PM on June 28, 2005

personally, I'd rather catch AIDS from a needle on the beach than put up with this crap...

do you think the "20% reduction in littering" has anything to do with the fact that 1/5 of the folks who see this on the beach immediately turn around, walk away, and never return?
posted by sexyrobot at 12:50 PM on June 28, 2005

Ah, yes, nothing is more beautiful and romantic than miles of clean, empty beaches with miles of seamless advertising. This seems really, really, icky, though I suppose the beaches in question are already rather icky to begin with.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:51 PM on June 28, 2005

SPAM SANDALS

As a 10th level marketing demon...

I welcome our 10th level marketing demon overlo **aaaiiiee** (falls over, stabbed)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:58 PM on June 28, 2005

Ew. I like the fact that it's reducing litter but it's so damn ugly. One of the pleasures of going to the beach is seeing the lovely rolling sand leading to the water's edge, not seeing a bunch of stamped ads.
posted by LeeJay at 1:07 PM on June 28, 2005

Me running on the sandy beach with my new shoes seems so superfluous now :'(

Up for a sabotage anyone? ;)
posted by borq at 1:07 PM on June 28, 2005

Personally, I think the "SPAM" sandals would work perfectly with the beach. You wander around, marking all of the advertising as spam.
posted by Bugbread at 1:21 PM on June 28, 2005

Ack! I wanna see the equipment that can produce these at "2000-5000" a day! They are very vague about what exactly creates these. I'm very very curious!

I bet you it looks very much like a snowmobile.

Hmm....I need to call the local ski-hills about an idea....
posted by Kickstart70 at 1:42 PM on June 28, 2005

Up for a sabotage anyone? ;)

Perhaps I should start a Beach Liberation Front splinter group?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:49 PM on June 28, 2005

Doesnt Santa Monica have a large beach roller that leaves imprints of seashells. I am sure that could do 5000 feet easily a day.
posted by stuartmm at 1:50 PM on June 28, 2005

Ack! I wanna see the equipment that can produce these at "2000-5000" a day!
You can see the contraption in the background of this picture. It's towed behind a tractor.

As for the concept, I wish all advertising could achieve this beautiful balance of low waste and easy destructibility.
posted by ulotrichous at 1:56 PM on June 28, 2005

I grew up in Huntington Beach, CA, and apparently the city beaches there were among the first to accept corporate sponsership for beach cleanup costs. It was from Coppertone, with the infamous dog-pulling-down-the-baby's-underpants ad on trash cans and billboards all over the beach.

But then again, Huntington Beach sold out a couple of decades ago, tearing down a very historic, interesting and cool old downtown strip and replacing it with a stucco temple dedicated to corporate wang-sucking, complete with fast food chains, bar and restaurant chains and worse. I think there even was or is a GAP there.

They even destroyed the historic Golden Bear concert hall and replaced it with a god-damned multiplex movie house.

I haven't seen those beaches in a while but I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing this beach imprinting already.

Something like that roller-imprinter needs to be hacked. Nothing political. Just something to make you think or smile.
posted by loquacious at 2:48 PM on June 28, 2005

Post a sign that says "Dig at the X to find treasure."
Imprint 5000 X's.
posted by breath at 2:53 PM on June 28, 2005

The only beaches I will lay with are clean ones.
posted by Peter H at 3:35 PM on June 28, 2005

Found it :-)
Carl Cheng Santa Monica Art tool
posted by stuartmm at 3:35 PM on June 28, 2005

Looking at the imprints, I'm guessing that there's a rubber blanket that has been photo-etched or CAD-milled that's wrapped around a drum.

You can see the mounting holes and 'shoulder' of the plate at each end of the image, especially noticable on the pics of imprints that are very long. Quite similar to a printing plate.

It would probably be very easy to hack if you could get access to the machine, get some accurate dimensions, and install your own plate.

And I bet the machine operators wouldn't even notice. Most beach grooming happens in the very early hours of the morning, and visibility is severely obscured by darkness and the clouds of dust beach grooming machines kick up.
posted by loquacious at 3:42 PM on June 28, 2005

Eh.
Once they start projecting ads onto the moon this will all seem quaint.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:58 PM on June 28, 2005

They already did. Why do you think they planted that flag?
posted by loquacious at 4:02 PM on June 28, 2005

Okay, so we understand that these ads have a very short window of existence before people tramp all over them on their way to the water. It's the nature of the medium. So, if a group of people walked directly behind one of these "stampers" as it was "stamping, kicking apart the advertising as soon is it goes down, how long until the police would be involved?

I gotta think not too long.
posted by ColdChef at 5:13 PM on June 28, 2005

I'm guessing that there's a rubber blanket that has been photo-etched or CAD-milled that's wrapped around a drum.

I'd guess it's milled flexible plastic or a high-density synthetic rubber, this would be an excellent example of rotogravure printing.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 5:16 PM on June 28, 2005

personally, I'd rather catch AIDS from a needle on the beach than put up with this crap...

For some reason, I don't belive you :P
posted by delmoi at 8:55 PM on June 28, 2005

Unforgivably horrible. The clean beaches/ads dichotomy is a false one ("Are you against clean beaches??!")

Yes, lets clean up our beaches but lets find a better solution than this.
posted by vacapinta at 9:21 PM on June 28, 2005

it's sand, people. if madison avenue wants to write messages in the sand and employ people to do it i say go for it.

if you cant figure out a way to relax at the beach you havent brought a thick enough towel to cover your eyes with.
posted by tsarfan at 10:18 PM on June 28, 2005

Actually these are created on a drum of concrete with the reverse of the ads imprinted on the drum. The drum is about 10-12' across with an axle connected to a spindle which allows a tractor to pull it. As I understand it there is a tractor which sucks up the sand, cleans it, expells it back onto the beach, then pulls the drum over the clean sand to make the imprint. I'm not sure I understand the trouble some folks are having with this. The beaches where this type of thing happens are extremely urban built enviroments. Within hours the beaches are swept clean by the breeze (sand is constantly moving) and the beaches are so much cleaner than normal. People drop so much damn trash on the beach it's appalling. As long as they are only impressing the sand I think it's fine. Next step though will be attempts to permanently impress the sand. Have no idea how such a thing would work but I have no doubt someone is working on it.
posted by filchyboy at 10:41 PM on June 28, 2005

Ugggggh - I find these hideous, grotesque, and very offensive. I would be much more likely to support a company that simply cleaned the beach and let that fact be known in some less in-your-face way.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:02 PM on June 28, 2005

So, if a group of people walked directly behind one of these "stampers" as it was "stamping, kicking apart the advertising as soon is it goes down, how long until the police would be involved?

I strongly encourage someone to give this a go. It would be very interesting to see if a city government would dare the bad publicity by bringing a case to court.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:11 AM on June 29, 2005

Something like this would probably only be used on the beaches that tourists are herded towards. I'm guessing that during prime season most beach community locals would not go near these beaches anyway. This idea is still an abomination.
posted by rdr at 4:39 AM on June 29, 2005

iamck writes "Destroy the beach to save it."

Holy crumpled overreaction batman, they aren't mixing cement into the sand or something. This has got to be the most harmless advertising I've ever seen. A pattern pressed in sand that lasts at most half a day and that only if no one actually uses the beach. Someone should figure out a similiar concept for highway meridians.

sexyrobot writes "I'd rather catch AIDS from a needle on the beach than put up with this crap..."

How do you leave your house?
posted by Mitheral at 6:25 AM on June 29, 2005

Mitheral, sexyrobot is protected by a healthy shield of wild hyperbole at all times.
posted by jonson at 7:59 AM on June 29, 2005

These don't bother me in the least as they are, for the most part, upon heavily trafficked beaches. I am a bit puzzled that they evoke such dire reactions from some people.
posted by bz at 1:35 PM on June 29, 2005

Because we're sick of seeing advertising everywhere - is that really such a hard concept to understand? I don't see why anyone would be "puzzled" by that.

And this doesn't really get to the root of the problem, and likely makes it worse - littering. If one knows that the beach will be combed tomorrow, it's not very easy to stop the habit of tossing trash on the ground.
posted by agregoli at 2:37 PM on June 29, 2005

I'd think it would be more effective for the corporations to put up a few signs near the walkins, "Beach Cleanup sponsored by Corporation X" and financially contribute to the cleanup.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:11 PM on June 29, 2005

I guess we are just bound to puzzle one another. It seems a silly thing to rail on about when there are so many other and more urgent things upon which to devote emotional energy.
posted by bz at 3:13 PM on June 29, 2005

bz : "It seems a silly thing to rail on about when there are so many other and more urgent things upon which to devote emotional energy."

By the same token, it could easily be said that it seems silly to be puzzled by something when there are so many other and more puzzling things on which to devote incomprehension.
posted by Bugbread at 6:38 PM on June 29, 2005

Someone should figure out a similiar concept for highway meridians.

Er... meridians are the concrete barriers between the opposing lanes, no? Why would you have them disappear daily?

Those of us who have read Stephenson's Young Girl's Primer know what lies in the future. Ugh.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:45 PM on June 29, 2005

I was thinking the grassy areas.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 PM on June 29, 2005

And you want the grassy areas to disappear? I don't get it at all. Grass > concrete barriers > head-on collisions > in-your-eye advertising, mais oui?
posted by five fresh fish at 8:47 PM on June 29, 2005

sexyrobot: do you think the "20% reduction in littering" has anything to do with the fact that 1/5 of the folks who see this on the beach immediately turn around, walk away, and never return?

If these ads make 20% of the people who throw broken bottles on the beach turn around and walk away without ever returning, I say good riddance.

I seem to remember a bit of an outcry when someone was arrested for spray-painting political slogans on the sidewalk using water-soluble paints and a specialized bicycle. Is this so very different?
posted by spazzm at 2:25 AM on June 30, 2005

Leave the grassy areas. Develop a technology that allows you to treat the grass in some way that it shows whatever pattern you want for a day or two while at the same time picking up trash.
posted by Mitheral at 7:04 AM on June 30, 2005