Living in LA is unique from living in other large cities. For one, we have a traffic problem known the world over, and boy, it's a doozy. It only complicates matters for me in that I live about 2 miles from the major intersection of the 101 and the 110 (which feeds into the I-10)... and yes, those numbers do resembler binary code more than they do freeway designations, and they blur together too often for many drivers who end up on the wrong freeway. (Seriously? I-10 and 110 look identical... couldn't we just call the freeways "the 1", "the 2", and "the 3", or at least some other combination of numbers besides the 1 and o and capital "i"?) Actually come to think of it, I do use an actual freeway called "the 2" more times than not, so scratch that... we'll have to call them "the 1", "the 2.5" and "the 3". There. Problem solved.
Anyway, all of this is well and good, but you quickly learn when living here that you have to schedule more driving time to reach destinations. If it takes me 20 minutes to drive to someplace anywhere else in America, it could take me twice that amount of time or longer here in LA to drive the same distance. I've found myself leaving the house at 5:30am to get to Santa Monica by 7am, and it's only 15 miles away... and you'd be surprised how many times I need the hour and a half I've given myself to actually make sure I can still get to my job on time.
Well another unique thing about living in LA is the marketing for Hollywood here. I've been to other big cities where you see the occasional billboard or ad for an upcoming movie or TV series. But here, in the heart of Tinseltown itself, advertising is big business. They know you'll be stuck in your car most mornings for a good 45 minutes or longer, so they bombard the freeways with billboards, bus stop posters, and even mobile advertising on the bus sidings. I'll give you $100 of you can drive 2 miles in any given direction in LA and not be assaulted with some sort of movie or television promotional advertising. So, I decided to hold a little experiment on my own time to see which films got the most advertising. The rules were simple: over the course of 48 hours I tried to tally and count every advertisement I saw for any and all upcoming movies. I figured I'd get a good idea of which films had the bigger advertising budgets based on which films I saw marketed most in this fashion. Now I know this isn't the only form of advertising... TV spots, internet ads, newspaper space, magazine pages, etc are all used just as well. But I wanted to see which films were really "taking it to the streets" so to speak, and plus, it gave me something to do on my morning commute. Think of it as a giant game of "I, Spy" to keep yourself occupied while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the wonderful highways of Los Angeles. So based on my research, here were my findings over the course of the 48 hour time window in which the experiment was conducted, in which all billboards, bus stop ads, and bus siding ads were accounted for. See how many of the titles you recognize to determine for yourself if these films are being promoted properly, they're all either already out in theaters or coming out soon in December.
Four Christmases: 16 ads
Bolt: 12 ads
Australia: 9 ads
Seven Pounds: 8 ads
Twilight: 6 ads
Madagascar II: 6 ads
Punisher: War Zone: 6 ads
The Tale of Despereaux: 6 ads
Yes Man: 4 ads
Quantum of Solace: 3 ads
Bedtime Stories: 3 ads
Valkyrie: 3 ads
Role Models: 2 ads
The Spirit: 2 ads
Body of Lies: 2 ads
Kung Fu Panda on DVD: 1 ad (and this sucker was a giant hand-painted display on the side of a building... see above picture... incredible.)
I guess it's fitting that Four Christmases was the number one film of the weekend, it also topped my little pole with the most visible examples of outdoor advertising. You'll also note that films which have already been released, such as Quantum of Solace and Body of Lies don't have as many ads up, that's because once a film comes out they start covering most of the old ads out there with new ads for as-yet-unreleased movies. Interestingly enough, two films I have not seen any outdoor ads for but have seen at least 3 or 4 television spots for each are Transporter 3 and The Day The Earth Stood Still... perhaps these films have chosen to dump all of their ad money into TV spots as opposed to outdoor marketing posters? Regardless, it was a fun little experiment, and I've even included a few pictures to show you what I'm talking about... most of the TV ads have died down since the new seasons started, and TV shows weren't part of my experiment this time around, so the old pictures of House and Heroes billboards/promotional posters are just to continue to paint you picture of life out here...
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