Houlley
I wondered when you would be coming along on this one. :)

Look, what one person might think is OTT others won't. I am really talking about the overt stuff (from my perspective). The sexy to drink sprite stuff I can live with and the comments about dad working home late is a bit of an over reaction again IMO.

It is a public space hence if it is inappropriate to put certain content on TV before a certain time why is is appropriate on a billboard which is 24/7. That is the important crux for me of this article.

CJ you raise a good point.

Christian billboards are offensive to some, and thus should also be removed, just as the atheist posters were blocked.

I agree with Wendy. I have an 18 month old son who sits in our car looking out the windows viewing images he should not see. If someone sat down next to him and showed him these images in a magazine it would be a crime. But corporations can show him the same images on HUGE billboards. It's disgusting. Our children should be protected from this sort of thing. Billboards should be "G" rated.

A billboard that medicalises a common condition for men is close to the Brisbane Boys College, but apparently that has escaped attention. Why so, because arguably it probably has a worse negative effect on the attitudes of adolescents and men than the advertisements complained about outside Grammar?

In a way it is probably to the good of students that some are located near schools, offering teachers to raise such advertising in class. Doubtless students discuss with messages with one another and that is a healthy thing, much better than when sex was hidden away in the Fifties and more vulnerable young people had no-one to turn to for independent, reassuring advice. Such signs adorn many major roads and children see them anyway.

A concern I have about complaints to remove 'offensive' signs is that this can easily extend into demands to withdraw planning approval for shops and businesses that some people can similarly take offence from, notwithstanding the legal business they conduct. For instance, the moral few might complain about liquor licences being approved within sight of schools. There have been cases around Australia where attempts have been made to embarrass unfortunate councillors and councils into over-turning their own decisions and guidelines. Mob rule is easier with modern communication channels.

I would very much like to see all billboards go, but for different reasons - they are distracting for drivers and are a blight on the scenery. Similarly, night-lit advertising should not be approved unless the business is operating during those hours.

I'm not sure about the G rating or location of advertising but I sure found it irritating that I had to traverse mini-billboards to read your interesting commentary - one of the problems of a free market is that regardless of content advertising is all pervasive - as well demonstrated in the text at hand! I would have liked to read this piece unencumbered by g rated advertising and maybe would have focused on the issue trather thn my irritaiton at being force fed products...

I'm not sure about the G rating or location of advertising but I sure found it irritating that I had to traverse mini-billboards to read your interesting commentary - one of the problems of a free market is that regardless of content advertising is all pervasive - as was well demonstrated in the text at hand! I would have liked to read this piece unencumbered by g rated advertising and maybe would have focused on the issue rather than my irritation at being force fed products...
However - I agree that we should review the wider role of product placement and that certainly from a semiotic perspective it was no accident that young men are being sought out as future consumers of the targeted bar market. One strategy is to educate critical readers of advertising.