Advertising in São Paulo and german cities: historical, cultural and semiotic dimensions

Abstract

We present results from two studies that have as context advertising in São Paulo before and after the law "Clean City" and german cities. It is a comparison in the historical, cultural and semiotic dimension. In its historical dimension, the paper documents and reflects the visual revolution in the urban space of São Paulo that took place during the few weeks when the law was implemented. In its intercultural dimension, the study examines the urban landscape of São Paulo before January 1, 2007 as compared to urban areas in several cities in Germany, in 2008. In his semiotic dimension, this paper examines the effect of the disappearance of signs that permeated the urban space to the 1st January 2007 and raises the question whether or which new meanings emerged in this space entirely stripped of advertising signs. We conclude that the radical elimination of advertising signs within the city of São Paulo revealed urban facades and ruinous buildings behind the advertising facilities, which have left more "clean" the urban landscape. The absence of signs advertising created non-urban places that leave certain emptiness, a sense of estrangement in flaneurs of its streets, which are beginning to feel the lack of poetry in everyday inherent sensuality of the billboards removed. However, it is believed that an effective system of urban planning rules can control the urban public to make a harmonious coexistence of these sign systems.