In my town I’m seeing a trend that I don’t like – a steady increase in the number of lawn signs. Like an annoying weed, they are sprouting everywhere I look. Their intent covers the full spectrum of causes - everything from supporting national and local candidates to encouraging parents to sign their kids up for summer ballet. Here are the reasons I don’t like lawn signs:
1) There are too many of them. I definitely have a case of lawn sign fatigue and I think many other people do also. They used to appear just around election day to let people know you support a particular candidate. But now they are used all year-long for a million different causes, most of which I couldn’t care less.
2) Most are impossible to read. Even if I wanted to read the sign I’d have a tough time doing so because the message is too small to read in the few seconds you have as you pass drive by. If you try to read the sign you’ll end up rear-ending someone or driving off the road.
3) They wreck the curb appeal of your house. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to make our house look nice and I don’t want to see most of my work undone by a 50 cent piece of cardboard stuck in the front lawn.
So when are lawn signs useful / effective? My research says they can be effective when a contractor is doing work such as painting, renovations or roofing on your house and they want to advertise their services. But once the contractors leave the lawn sign needs to go with them!
What do you think of lawn signs? Does anybody really pay attention to them?
Photo courtesey of Flickr Creative Commons
