Lamar Takes Down Billboards That Criticized Israel
Lamar Advertising has bowed to pressure and taken down a political billboard that criticized the U.S.’s funding of Israel. The billboard had said “Tell Congress: Stop Killing Children. No More Military Aid to Israel.”
It was paid for by the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, a Cindy Sheehan-backed organization that wants to stop the next 10 years of American funding of Israel. The coalition believes the money is used to oppress the Palestinians.
About 10 billboards went up in Albuquerque, N.M., on April 8, but Lamar took them down again on April 28 after receiving “hundreds” of complaints.
Poor Lamar just can’t catch a break. A lengthy Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story recently named Lamar’s billboards in a story on whether animated digital billboards increase traffic danger by distracting drivers. The advertising industry has commissioned studies that say they don’t; others, unsurprisingly, say they do. And Lamar was recently blamed a for a car crash because it removed a bus shelter that was being vanadalized.
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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