Human Billboarding: Peopled Publicity and a New Space of “Agency” in Advertising

Abstract

In today’s saturated media environment, advertising messages populate every part of the landscape, causing advertisers to seek new ways to break through the clutter and reach potential consumers. Against this backdrop, a renewed form of selling messages emerges, which continues to develop in pace with ongoing shifts within the advertising and mass media landscapes. This article analyzes the evolving phenomenon of human billboarding. Beginning with an examination of the history of this practice, the paper moves beyond the usual “end of the world as we know it” position of related research and seeks more productive ways to understand this new form of corporate messaging as a strategy for addressing social realities through carnivalesque performance.

The Greening of Euro 2016: Fan Footage, Representational Tropes, and the Media Lionization of the Irish in France

“…Equally, they offer a reminder that fan behavior is not always reliable or predictable, and that as promotional subjects, fans carry a degree of risk. “The problem with brand ambassadors,” Susan McFarlane-Alvarez (2014) tells us, “is that they are human and subject to human error and indiscretion, sometimes dragging the brand with which they are associated into the spotlight of similar judgment and scrutiny.” Given the negative media attention attracted by the English and Russian fans who violently clashed at Euro 2016, it can be assumed that Vauxhall (the English team’s chief sponsor) and Huawei (then the sponsor of the Russian team) were relieved that their logos were absent from the jerseys of the battling supporters. None of the dissenting voices we examined included any complaints of Three commercializing or encouraging the “cringe worthy” fan antics at Euro 2016.…”