At fucking last!

Despite having completed the billboard fundraiser almost two months ago - thanks to 115 awesome supporters - the SWAAY billboard campaign has been on hold.  I haven't been trying to keep anyone in the dark, but every time it seemed like headway was being made, the billboard would get shut down by someone else, which is frustrating.  Even now, after signing a contract, agreeing upon a start date, and the billboard itself having been printed, I'm still nervous to publicize that date, because it feels like jinxing things.

Every major (and many minor) outdoor advertising companies in LA rejected the pro-sex worker billboard, leaving our ad guys guys at Epic Step pretty shocked that a polite text-only billboard would encounter such a massive wall of resistance.  (San Francisco's St James Infirmary has also faced an uphill struggle lately to find a company willing to accept their money.  Their ad campaign ended up finding a home with Muni bus ads.)  I really have to hand to to Epic Step, as the small company went above and beyond to find a way to get our message out.

The billboard was rejected by Clear Channel, CBS, Lamar, Regency, Van Wagner, Avant Outdoor, LA Transit Authority, and Outdoor Solutions.  However, the big three companies are no strangers to taking money from controversial causes and campaigns.  Clear Channel, Lamar, and CBS have hosted billboards featuring racist, anti-gay, anti-church/state separation, and anti-sex worker/anti-client billboards.  On the other hand, CBS and Lamar have hosted pro-marijuana ones, and CBS had a WikiLeaks billboard, so these companies are no strangers to "weird" causes that I support, either.

You can click see a large version.

This is not to say that I think people should not be allowed to express views that differ from my own, simply to point out that the big three advertising companies have no problem with other controversial campaigns.  They are clearly making decisions with who they're willing to do business - which is their right - but they've decided that the ad dollars of religious nutjobs, the police, racists, bigots, and even those who are (potentially) breaking laws are more acceptable than the ad dollars of sex workers.  (I'm pretty flattered that sex work is even more controversial to ad companies than WikiLeaks, honestly.)

In the end, the guys at Epic Step found RoadSign Adverts for us, which is a mobile billboard company.  Mobile billboards seem to be a bit of a "last resort" option for those rejected from the mainstream, and have been favored by folk like strip clubs and anti-abortion activists.  SWAAY's billboard will (assuming nothing else goes wrong) be starting later this month, and will be driving around in LA for 7 days.  I'm hoping that maybe this will be a blessing in disguise, and that the mobile billboard, because of their rarity, will garner even more attention than a standard stationary billboard.  The mobile billboards are more expensive, so what we fundraised to pay for 4 weeks of a standard billboard only buys us 7 days of a mobile one.

Since the billboard size was a bit different than a stationary billboard - taller, but less wide - I did change the text very slightly to make it fit better. I imagine supporters wouldn't mind.  Here's what LA is going to be seeing soon:

So, three cheers for Epic Step and RoadSign Adverts!  I'll write a proper press release for distribution when the truck starts running, but for now, I wanted to bitch about the backstory and rejections.  Also, looking ahead, I've asked Epic Step to start feeling out billboard companies in New York City and Washington DC, since I would like to make this a national campaign.  I don't know if I'll start the next fundraiser in November or in the new year, since holidays have everyone vying for donations and money, but we'll see.  I'm excited to see what kind of attention this project is going to generate.