While the City of Paris has announced several times in recent months its intention to “declutter public space” by attacking the place of advertising in the streets of the capital, a new campaign signed JCDecaux, an advertising company urban, appeared everywhere last Wednesday on bus shelters, kiosks and Morris columns in the City of Lights.
Three messages are thus affixed: “Brand communication finances this bus shelter to better shelter you”;
“Brand communication finances this kiosk to better inform you”;
“Since 1868, these columns have been offered to you for our culture.”
Some took them as a direct response from JCDecaux to the war launched by the municipality.
However, it could be a simple coincidence, assures Albert Asseraf, general director of communications for the French industrial group.
“The project precedes all debates on the subject, we have been thinking about it for more than a year,” he specifies, recalling that JCDecaux is not concerned by this advertising hunt since the municipality only targets urban information furniture (MUI) and wild posters.
Big operation “advertising is life!”
at JCDecaux currently!
A good lobby which is preparing against the end of commercial advertising in Paris.
Cc @ecoloParis @egregoire @RAP_Asso pic.twitter.com/6WxAXxwiSd
— Fabien Tipon and co (@FabienTipon) February 7, 2024
But then, what message is hidden behind these three slogans?
In reality, it would be a reminder of the “little-known service model” that are these display spaces created by JCDecaux sixty years ago.
“The objective is to make everyone understand that it is virtuous because it does not impact public finances.
We do not touch taxpayers' money or citizens' taxes contrary to what many people think.
We are the ones who pay for the design of the furniture, their manufacturing, their installation in public spaces and of course their maintenance,” summarizes Albert Asseraf.
Faced with this panel, the questioning looks confirm this observation.
“I thought it was the municipality that paid for the bus shelters and renovated them.
It’s true that it’s intelligent on their part and it allows us to show that everything is not just vice in advertising and that it is an economic model that, unfortunately, we need,” admits Flavie, 42 years old. , from a bus stop bench decorated with one of the campaign posters.
Not everyone seems convinced, however.
A few steps away, near a kiosk on Boulevard Saint-Michel, Aurélien, a 23-year-old student, can't help but chuckle at the poster.
“It’s all well and good to say they pay for everything.
In the meantime, we are bombarded with advertising all day long and we consume what they want to sell us,” he laments.