Harbinger Sign, Electroland, Clear Channel Entice Jacksonville with “Nothing” Campaign

During its nearly decade-long run on prime-time TV, Jerry Seinfeld touted his eponymous TV show as “a comedy about nothing.” During the month of March, several organizations collaborated to develop an outdoor-advertising campaign about, well, nothing.

For the project, Clear Channel Outdoor’s Jacksonville’s office, Florida Mining Gallery, a museum operated by Jacksonville’s Harbinger Sign Co. on its campus; and Electroland, a Marina Del Rey, CA environmental-graphic-design firm, collaborated to create “Sale”, the month-long advertising campaign. Displayed on several Clear Channel electronic billboards throughout the month, “Sale” featured a rotation of images on the 26 Clear Channel displays that employ the campaign.

For the Highway Gallery, a citywide, public-art campaign, which is operated cooperatively by Clear Channel and Florida Mining to embellish Jacksonville, Cabeth Cornelius, Harbinger’s director of marketing, engaged Cameron McNall, Electroland’s principal, to develop a series of images for “Sale”, a marketing campaign whose function is solely to promote itself. According to Cabeth Cornelius, Harbinger’s marketing manager, “Sale explores the visual mechanisms underlying how text and images are used to create the different voices of outdoor advertising, with a focus on how a marketing campaign is employed. To me, the images work together to tell a story about perception and branding.”

In the campaign’s imagery, McNall uses many common, almost cliché, images and words associated with EDS signage, such as puppies, babies and attractive women, with such brief text as “Sale” or “Look”.