Artistic historic OOH
Here in the UK we still see glimpses of brilliant adverts painted onto buildings, a sign that OOH advertising has long worked for consumers to find out about brands, services and products.
These old adverts are widely known as ghost signs; there are even dedicated websites that tell you where to find them like this London one. This name has been given to those faded advertisements that were applied straight to brickwork that are still visible today.
These advertisements are not just a UK legacy, it’s something in evidence around the world. They had a few things in common; they were often hand painted and they weren’t just the reserve of businesses with big budgets. They are often from the late 19th century and early 20th century; it was post war that the billboards and posters that are still widely used today replaced this advertising form.
Hand painted by artists called ‘wall dogs’ these advertisements just used oil paint and you’d often find adverts painted over multiple times. Some of today’s favourite brands still have ghost signs throughout the country including Boots, Nestle and Hovis. As well as brands that are long gone. In fact it was known that these wall paintings could last longer than the actual advertisers sometimes! With all the effort that went into painting them it’s understandable that no one rushed to remove them.
If you had a gable end as a homeowner you could make big money ‘renting’ the space for advertising, pretty similar to today then! Some smaller businesses used their own property to advertise and some larger companies with products like tobacco had multiple adverts on any building possible.
Some have been preserved because they are simply stunning and deserve to be kept alive as wonderful pieces of art.
How you got any local examples where you live?