RALEIGH — I’d never say that you could learn more at a shopping center than you can in a library. I’m not that dismissive of the importance of reading and the value of the written word.
Instead, I’d rate their educational value as roughly equal.
A couple of months ago, I began a new book for Praeger Publishing on the morality of advertising and commerce. Tentatively entitled Selling the Dream: Why Advertising is Good Business, the piece is intended to follow up on my first book, The Heroic Enterprise, which explored the morality and social responsibility of corporations, and as well as picking up some loose strands from my 2001 book Investor Politics, which laid out the case for rebuilding a constituency for limited government by encouraging the widespread ownership of corporate securities and replacing government transfer payments with tax-free savings accounts.
While driving from Raleigh to Chapel Hill Saturday to do some research in the library on a chapter about current controversies over the regulation of commercial speech, my hunger for knowledge yielded to a far more important hunger: for a spicy, sloppy sub. As I happened to be approaching the Southpoint-area interchange on I-40 just south of Durham, I scrutinized the assortment of logos on the motorist-information panel (the blue board with all those fast-food logos on it) to see what options I had.
I’ll leave one of the company names out of my account, as it is not the point, but suffice to say that there was one nationally known chain available as well as a local chain called Rudino’s whose Italian grinder — complete with toated bread, fresh tomatoes, thin-sliced ham, and little pieces of sausage imbedded in melted cheese — is simply the best available in the Triangle. Delighted to see the latter, I took the exit and then promptly got quite lost. The directional signs at the top of the ramp were largely useless, since I immediately came to two additional intersections where the Rudino’s logo was not available on any sign. The nationally known chain’s was, so I was about to take the easy road and go there when a mental picture of that greasy sausage got the best of me. I had to have it. So I drove around for another 10 minutes (don’t get my started on those idiotic municipal sign ordinances that make the problem worse) until I found the restaurant, which happened to be on the other side of the same shopping center where the nationally known restaurant was located.
Other than having demonstrated my utter lack of self-control where precariously balanced 8-inch hoagies are concerned, what’s my point? It’s simple: my inconvenience, and the local store’s near-loss of a (sizable) sale, was likely due to government regulation. This is a stretch of highway where, I believe, new billboard are not allowed. Wouldn’t want to spoil all that lovely scenery! Of course, virtually no one drives I-40 through Research Triangle Park for the scenery. They are trying to get from Point A to Point B, possibly with a Point C, such as a lunch stop, along the way. If the owners of Rudino’s were able to, I suspect that they would use a billboard to give motorists appropriate directions to their shop. Instead, all the competing restaurants are relegated to the aforementioned motorist-information panel, which doesn’t suffice as a means of offering an equal opportunity to compete for customers.
As it happens, one of the issues I was researching on Saturday was the regulation of outdoor advertising, and as I waddled through the library later that afternoon I found some research directly relevant to the issue and to my experience. It is undeniable, for example, that billboard regulations create a competitive advantage for large businesses over small ones, as almost happened in my case. One reason is that those little logos on the blue signs are low-cost ways for firms large enough to advertise nationally on television, radio, or print to capitalize on their investment — their recognizable logo — while firms reliant only on spot advertising and unable to afford media alternatives can’t put any information in them other than a name, which means nothing except to some repeat customers.
Dr. Charles Taylor, a professor of marketing at Villanova University, reports that studies bear out such disadvantages accruing to small firms in the absence of the billboard option. Consider, he says, the very different value of putting a McDonald’s logo on a blue sign next to one for “Joe’s Diner.” Writing in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, he also reports that in surveys most Americans identify billboards as “important sources of tourist information,” and that assertions that billboards create safety hazards by distracting motorists are simply not supported by the available academic research.
He and others are not arguing that billboards should be entirely unregulated. Indeed, because outdoor advertising derives its value almost entirely from the presence of state-owned highways, it is not unreasonable to consider ways to ensure that producers and consumers making use of the billboards contribute an appropriate amount to the upkeep of the highway, and that the signs conform with spacing and design rules to ensure safey and discourage clutter. But politicians and activists who call outdoor advertising “litter on a stick” and who seek reduction and eventual abolition of billboards aren’t serving the interest of consumers or small businesses. They are serving the interests of big businesses, of media competitors to billboard companies, and of elitist snobs who don’t care about the price or availability of food, gasoline, or lodging — they have their “man” take care of such things ahead of time, you see.
They better watch out the next time they try to get between me and my sub. Depending on how late I may have waited to eat lunch, I cannot be held responsible for what might happen.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.