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The digital advertising spaces are power guzzlers and characterize the public space too much. This is the criticism in Zurich.
The city of Zurich is currently bidding on who may manage the advertising space on public land. It’s about 1300 conventional billboards and 30 digital advertising systems.
Screens consume a lot of electricity
The city of Zurich is committed to the climate goal of a 2000-watt society. Digital advertising screens with their high energy consumption do not fit in well with this. At least that’s what the IG “Plakat – Raum – Gesellschaft” thinks.
In an open letter to the Zurich city government, she therefore criticized this digital advertising space. “These screens consume a lot of energy. They are active light sources in contrast to a conventional poster,” emphasizes IG representative Christian Hänggi.
Hänggi has calculated that the LED screens consume half of the solar power generated in the city of Zurich.
Outside advertising society put into perspective
The outdoor advertising company Clear Channel, which operates the advertising space in the city of Zurich, disagrees: One invests in sustainability, for example by using green electricity and reducing the light intensity at night.
In addition, the digital advertising space now has a very small share of the total advertising space, explains CEO Christoph Marty: “According to all the forecasts, this will probably remain the case in Switzerland for a very long time. There will certainly not be a situation analogous to London or New York with large screens.”
There will certainly not be a situation analogous to London or New York with large screens.
An investment in such screens is only worthwhile in particularly well-frequented locations, emphasizes Marty. But it is precisely there that a particularly large number of people are affected, counters IG representative Hänggi. In addition, the Zürcher Verkehrsbetriebe VBZ are even planning 250 new, digital advertising spaces.
With its letter, the IG is now calling for a public debate on the use of public space by the advertising companies. “This is a form of privatization of public space that should belong to all of us. But there is no democratic debate about the joint design of this space,” says Hänggi.
This is a form of privatization of the public space that should belong to all of us.
This debate is already underway in Geneva and Lausanne, but also in many European cities. In Geneva, for example, commercial advertising on public land is to be completely banned from 2025.
In return, the advertising companies emphasize that they compensate the public purse very heavily for this use. The digital billboard concessions bring the city significantly more revenue than the billboard concessions, says Clear Channel’s Marty. His company spent eight million Swiss francs on digital advertising space last year.