The different ways in which posters are used – from education to entertainment to marketing.
Posters are now bigger than ever before. They are basically a picture or photo or printed designs which are then placed on a wall or billboards or vertical surfaces.
Posters are designed to be eye-catching and are often used by companies to advertise products such as Walker’s Crisps who have billboard posters of Gary Lineker eating their products. This is to try and promote their brand to different audiences and they can be put in wide variety of places.
Posters can also be used to promote concerts. For instance if there was a famous musician coming to a city, there would be lots of posters put on walls in the area, firstly to promote that the musician is coming to the area so people buy the tickets, but also as an information board. So on the poster often will be included the dates of the concert, its location and the prices – also if there is any supporting act playing as well as the musician.
Posters are also a method where musicians have made a lot of money via selling posters of themselves. In most young teenagers’ bedrooms nowadays you can find a picture of their favourite singer or band. Even companies like football teams have tried to take advantage of this marketplace, as now many young men will also have a picture of their favourite football team with their full squad picture on a poster on their wall.
The government has also now seen what a marketing tool posters can prove to be and they have been creating posters which are now designed to educate people. For instance you often see on posters dotted about cities no smoking advertisements which show people the harmful damage which smoking can cause to the body and the poster will often try to give advice against smoking and maybe a help line number. This a very cheap way that the government can target a large audience as placing one poster in a very busy high street can potentially be seen by thousands of people a day for very little cost. Another message which the government tries to put out to people via posters is often safe sex. Again they can choose where to put their posters, such as outside hospitals or youth centres or places where teenagers who are uneducated about sex go, this allows each poster to be able to target a very particular and specific target audience.
Grant Wron writes on behalf of Poster XXL AG