Months of coronavirus lockdowns in Melbourne had quite the effect on the city and everyone who lived through them, but one I didn’t notice was a plague of zombie advertisements around the city.
Coming to cinemas?
In March 2020 I spotted a bus with advertisements for ‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway‘ – in cinemas March 19.
The pandemic saw that date canned, the film being released a year later on 25 March 2021.
And in September 2020 I found a big advertisement for ‘Trolls World Tour‘ – in cinemas March 26. Did they mean 2020 or 2021?
Turns out it was March 2020 – the film was again delayed, eventually being released on 17 September 2020.
By December 2020 film studios must have learnt their lesson, and realised that your release date could be pulled out from beneath you – ‘The Dry‘ was advertised as ‘In cinemas soon’.
On 11 December 2020 the film premiered in Melbourne, with a full theatrical release following from 1 January 2021.
The bottom falls out of the ad market
With everyone stuck at home, why would an advertiser bother spending money putting their message out onto empty streets. As a result buses were stripped of outdated advertisements.
Or covered with ‘house ads‘ for the Pigeon Project market research program run by outdoor advertising company JCDecaux.
But one winner
One company making money from people stuck at home was online streaming services – and they splashed out big on bus advertising. Amazon Prime Video was one.
Stan.
Disney Plus.
And Hayu.
And trams too
Travel writer Tim Richards was stuck at home in Melbourne, and discovered that trams were still advertising the cancelled 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Sigh, those trams from the alternate dimension where we didn’t have a pandemic and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival took place are still leaking through to our dimension: pic.twitter.com/EvlSnKtG0T
— Tim Richards (@Aerohaveno) September 12, 2020
Further reading
Over on Curbed they wrote about a similar phenomenon elsewhere in their piece ‘The Zombie Billboards of Locked-Down New York‘.
Standing on a subway platform now, it looks as if Riverdance’s big 25th anniversary show just opened, David Byrne’s American Utopia is still enjoying a limited Broadway run, and Mrs. America, the Phyllis Schlafly miniseries, is set to hit Hulu next month — April 2020. In stations across New York City, LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae have now been touching foreheads in ads for The Photograph for two Valentine’s Days. It’s the same on the streets: Cars driving into the Midtown Tunnel from Queens throughout the year were reminded that A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open on March 20; the film won’t hit theaters until this May, but the billboard stayed up nearly until March 2021.
The zombie ads have stayed up simply because no one is buying new ones.
And over at Wikipedia they have an article detailing the “impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema“.
I like that you can still find bill posters for events that never happened, and they were never pulled down due to no future events. It makes the world look like an apocalypse occurred.
On a side note (!), it’s very disappointing to see almost the entire sides of buses plastered with vinyl wrap advertising. That can make it very difficult for passengers to see out of the bus in certain light and weather conditions.
A number of years ago, I was told by a PTV staff member that buses wearing PTV livery had to restrict any vinyl wrap on the sides to the centre third only. That seemed to be the case at that time. Bus companies that kept their own livery (e.g. McHarry’s and Sita) had the more extensive advertising coverage.
Now, it seems that PTV is not enforcing its “rule”, assuming it ever existed.
I live in Delahey and Transit Systems (formerly Sita Buslines, operator of Route 420 that runs along Kings Road here in Delahey) continues to do it (they kept their old livery) while CDC Melbourne has the PTV livery, but I think I have seen some of their buses (on Route 425) have advertising for most of the driver’s side. Kastoria is I think the worst offender here in Melbourne’s west with advertising covering (in some cases) entire buses (except for the front) covered in advertising. I think there should be limits on advertising on buses and other modes of transport, especially school buses that carries students.
An addition to the post I made on Tuesday. I was doing extra work in the Dandenongs earlier today and despite the bus using the PTV livery, I saw a Ventura bus with an ad plastered on almost the entire side of the bus.
An example. 😛
McHarry’s is an interesting one – it seems like they have their own dedicated advertising network, ‘Big Bus Media’.
http://bussignage.com.au/about.html
At Southern Cross main entrance (near the clock tower) they still have up a large drinking water bottle company ad. This was up in February 2020, and still there. Pre-COVID these ads would change every 2-4 weeks.
My last photo was also from February 2020.