When there are too many outdoor advertisements and their placement is random, the entire city ultimately suffers. Major cities around the world have reached a tipping point where the overload has become a concern not just for architects and advertising professionals, but also for ordinary people, whose patience has run out.

For example, a movement against street advertising emerged in Poland after entire apartment buildings with windows were hidden behind massive billboards. Paradoxically, the urban landscape became both visually aggressive and ugly, yet at the same time, people simply stopped noticing the advertisements altogether — because our capacity to perceive has its limits.

Poles getting rid of extra outdoor advertising

Eventually, legislation stepped in and cities like Gdansk and others across Poland began removing outdoor advertisements that obscured architecture and cluttered the urban landscape. When the buildings finally emerged from beneath the billboards, many were surprised to discover how beautiful their hometown really was.

While municipal revenues did decline somewhat due to the drop in advertising tax income, the city budgets were also replenished by fines imposed on those who violated the new restrictions. According to Bored Panda, public support in Gdansk was nearly unanimous: a survey found that 97 percent of residents supported removing ads from building facades and 90 percent were in favor of strict rules for green spaces and historic areas.

Meanwhile, as civil society — also known by the trendier term "community" — eagerly rallies against neighborhood playgrounds or gears up to oppose the construction of new shopping centers, the oversaturation of outdoor advertising in Tallinn has, for some reason, remained outside the spotlight. Perhaps we haven't yet experienced anything comparable to Poland's situation, but in parts of the city, the streetscape already resembles the Wild East of the 1990s.

In Helsinki, the sale of permanent advertising space in public areas is permitted only through a city procurement process that selects specific operators. One is responsible for the city center, while another handles the rest of Helsinki. This approach prevents the rise of advertising anarchy.

The size and placement of outdoor ads must harmonize with buildings and their surroundings. In general, residential buildings are not allowed to carry outdoor advertisements at all, because Helsinki's regulations state clearly that a building's primary function is not to serve as an advertisement. As a result, it is only acceptable to place ads on buildings and plots that promote the building itself or its users. Tallinn, too, has a corresponding regulation, as well as both written and unwritten rules. It would be enough simply to start enforcing them.

Are people or goods being sold?

Anyone observing this chaotic sprawl of outdoor advertising might ask themselves: what if they are actually the product being sold? Because in essence, what's being marketed is the simple fact that a lot of people pass within view of the billboard. The company buying ad time on a giant digital screen is being sold the illusion that someone is actually looking — though in reality, very few are, precisely because the ad is either in the wrong place or surrounded by so many others that it gets lost.

Often, the owner of a building sees a chance to make a tidy profit by renting out their blank end wall for advertising. And why not, since the residents of the building don't see it themselves. But those massive screens do beam straight into the windows of neighboring buildings, degrading the architectural landscape and the view for both locals and passersby. People notice beauty in an urban environment, but when that environment is ugly, they tend to shut it out entirely.

So when and why did outdoor advertising in Tallinn exceed the limits of good taste? Technically, the city has a regulation that governs outdoor media — it states that advertising must not pollute the urban landscape, must not interfere with traffic and must suit its architectural surroundings.

Previously, the Urban Planning Department oversaw this across all of Tallinn. But that responsibility was later handed off to district architects, who in some cases unfortunately seem to lack the necessary expertise and judgment. Meanwhile, the city's Transport Department approves all permit applications as long as the ad doesn't directly threaten traffic safety. It is high time to once again prioritize urban beauty. A city should be beautiful and advertisements should be placed where they blend into the urban environment — not dominate it or distort its appearance.

An overload of outdoor ads doesn't make them more visible; in fact, the opposite is true. In the end, it's the advertisers who lose out. Even in New York, known for its abundance of billboards, the number of outdoor ads has been drastically reduced and concentrated in logical locations — subways, roadsides — places where people actually move about. Communication has been brought down to street level, to where people are walking. Times Square and similar spots in other global cities are, of course, the exception. They're advertising meccas that wouldn't be the same without bright billboards.

In Brussels, Strasbourg and Berlin, people have given real thought to what outdoor advertising actually is. It's a way of sharing information, a channel for people to receive hopefully useful and relevant messages. Ads are allowed in the right spots — where people can see them and the message can land.

But in Tallinn, what you see at the Kristiine intersection, on Endla tänav and along Narva maantee is complete chaos. On top of the glut of large digital screens, PVC banners are still being strung up on wires here and there, reminiscent of Soviet-era May Day parades — something that should be entirely obsolete in the 21st century. Digital screens can actually be great — if they are proportionate to the building's architecture and placed correctly, ideally at roughly the same height as the eye level of someone walking by.

Oversized digital screens are designed more for drivers moving at high speeds than for pedestrians. For some reason, these giant ads are particularly rampant in poorer Eastern European cities, as well as in parts of Asia and America where city planning is primarily geared toward drivers. But Tallinn aspires to be part of the Nordic family of cities — places that put people first.

Who needs outdoor display and why?

Tallinn is the capital of the country and compared to Tartu and other cities, the pressure outdoor advertising exerts on its streetscape is inevitably greater. In most cases, building owners aren't even interested in what the original architect — the author of the building — might think about their plans to slap a digital screen on a random wall. With older buildings, the architect has long since passed away, so one can only hope the residents and city officials have good taste.

As a starting point, the Tallinn city government could bring together its long-term partners and have a real discussion about the purpose of outdoor advertising in the city and who the urban space is actually meant for. If it becomes clear that the goal of outdoor ads is to inform consumers, then city planners can begin to assess where and what kind of advertising belongs.

In addition to architects, the city government should employ an urban designer — incidentally, that role used to exist. The first thing that person would do is ask whether the advertiser has obtained the approval of the building's architect in the case of newer constructions. Next, they would evaluate whether the advertisement aligns with the city's design guidelines.

Politicians like to talk about green and safe urban environments, but they tend to ignore the negative impact of randomly placed posters and screens. It's time they take action and push back against the unchecked spread of ad space — before city residents start fighting it themselves.

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