I have been scaling my media biz. Like, literally. I am—for seven seconds in a rotating loop—a billboard. Or at least an image of my face is—and by face, I mean the one made for radio, and by radio, specifically The Drive 95.5 FM, which I host from 3 to 6pm, weekdays.
As a concept, the billboard predates the advent of the ever-shrinking American attention span. Ancient Egyptians carved public notices into stone—arguably the first “out-of-home media buy.” By the 1830s, ur–Mad Man Jared Bell was plastering New York City with oversized posters to hawk circus acts like Barnum & Bailey, thus inventing what we’d recognize as the modern billboard. These were large, loud and impossible to ignore. Which is to say: Not much has changed.
My particular incarnation, glowing over Rohnert Park in crisp LED glory, lasts roughly as long as a TikTok clip, but bigger. A lot bigger. It’s a sideways, 48-foot-wide by 14-foot-tall social media post. It’s what multinational ad and PR firm Publicis Groupe’s Rishad Tobaccowala calls “Instagram on steroids.” In my case, this tracks: The board gets 220,144 weekly impressions, while my actual Instagram posts seldom crack two.
I know these billboard numbers because the company that runs my particular “digital bulletin,” Veale Outdoor Advertising, has a promo page for the spot, complete with a spiffy drone video that pinpoints the location (101 near Golf Course Drive—Latitude 38.357514º, Longitude 122.712764º, if you’re feeling cartographic).
Lady Bird’s Law
Advertising legend David Ogilvy observed, “Billboards are like outdoor theater; they speak to the world in a language of visuals.” Sure. But at 70 miles per hour, you’re covering roughly 100 feet per second, which means you have about 700 feet to enjoy my shit-eating grin before I’m replaced by personal injury attorneys and casino buffets.
Still, as Warren Buffett said, “I like billboards. They’re a terrific business; people see them whether they want to or not.”
This inevitability is perhaps why First Lady Lady Bird Johnson championed the Highway Beautification Act of 1965—“Lady Bird’s Law”—which imposed limits on billboard size, lighting and spacing along federally funded highways. North Bay locals will note a similar impulse closer to home: Marin County has no billboards, thanks to Sepha Evers and the Marin Conservation League, who in 1935 pushed for Ordinance 226 restricting signage within 500 feet of the highway.
In the grand tradition of circus posters and personal branding writ large (looking at you, Angelyne), I have joined the skyline. Not permanently, not even reliably—but enough to say I was there.
Seven seconds at a time.
Subscribe to Daedalus Howell at dhowell.com.
