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Scenic St. Petersburg

An Affiliate of Scenic Florida

Rope A Dope

The billboard industry uses the term "Rope A Dope" in reference to their marketing techniques used in the strategy to swap small, old, obsolete, or illegal billboards for new billboards, electronic or otherwise.

Why the trick NOW?

They are IN A HURRY and sending high level executive teams into communities around the country right now, to GET AHEAD of an expected Federal study that will certainly result in them being in a much more difficult negoting position and/or COMPLETELY UNABLE to install such devices after the report is available in April.

Why should we care?

Cities allowing these devices will certainly be involved in decades long litigation and could even be in a position of paying not only to remove such devices, but to compensate these same companies for the cost of the board AND the revenue over the expected lifetime to avoid continuing the extraordinary legal costs.

Read what advertising consultant Richard Erickson had to say about this subject in this letter to Scenic Texas.

St. Petersburg is on track to fall into this exact trap.  In the table below is the "Removal Inventory" as proposed by Clear Channel.  Note that they are proposing to remove small 12x25 (288 square feet) billboards in exchange for new digital boards, which might be as large as 14x48 (672 square feet) EACH.   Clear Channel can't make any money on these old boards, but under their proposal their digital billboards would be allowed to put a new sign face up every 10 SECONDS.  That is 6 sign faces a minute, each one of which could be different, 24 hours a day.  And those new signs would be in a premier, high traffic location.  No wonder Clear Channel is offering 'such a deal'.

Read the correspondence between the Mayor and Clear Channel on this subject.  Notice the sophisticated wording of the proposal that the Mayor is making to the Council. 

Does it sound like a city administrator wrote this:

or was it written by Clear Channel?  You decide.

You'd have to be a dope to fall for this trick.

REMOVAL INVENTORY

 
Location
 
 
12 x 25
30 Sheet
Other
14 x 48
Total
 
 
 
 
 
I-275, I-375, I-75
3
3
10
 
Roosevelt Blvd.
4
 
 
 
Tyrone Blvd.
2
 
 
 
34th Street
9
2
 
 
9th Street (Dr. M.L. King Jr. Street)
11
 
1
 
4th Street
7
2
2
 
38th Avenue North
9
 
 
 
28th Street
4
 
 
 
22nd Avenue South
2
 
 
 
Central Avenue
4
 
 
 
1st Avenue South
3
 
 
 
Pasadena Avenue South
1
 
1
 
1st Avenue North
1
 
 
 
5th Avenue North
4
 
 
 
5th Avenue South
4
 
 
 
3rd Avenue South
2
 
 
 
18th Avenue South
3
 
 
 
9th Avenue North
2
 
 
 
22nd Avenue North
2
 
 
 
49th Street
3
 
 
 
      Currently Exist
90
6
48
144
      To be Removed
81
3
16
100
      Existing to Remain
9
3
32
44
      To be Replaced by Electronic
4
0
6
10
      Net Decrease
 
 
 
100