I was recently walking the streets of Rome, Italy, and taken by the number of promotional stickers (adesivo pubblicitaro). Not stickers on cars, but sticker advertising on buildings. Here’s a photo of a typical entry way of an apartment building you might see peppered with stickers.
Our source in Italy tell us this sticker advertising is for all types of services like plumbing, shutters, movers and evictions. It is prevalent advertising due to it’s low cost, DIY nature, and ease of avoiding a required “local publicity tax”. Which sticker design in the picture stands out for you? Who would you call for needed services? Yeah, there’s absolutely no differentiation in the designs or advertising.
Though the Italians are quite accustomed to graffiti it is still surprising to me that no one has a bigger problem with this trashy advertising method or that the tax isn’t better enforced to cut down on the activity. But, the bigger surprise to me is that none of the companies puts any sticker design effort into standing out from the crowd. Perhaps this is also due to the tax issue and drawing too much attention to an advertisement might not only attract viewers but the authorities as well?
Upon asking about the designs and there seeming similarity, our Rome contact commented, “it is not true that they are all equal. There are all sizes and colors.” So, whatever the reasons behind boring, rectangular, cookie cutter designs there would seem to be a huge opportunity for a business to have effectively designed their stickers for advertising to dominate the landscape or perhaps even be worth paying taxes on.
You may not be a local Rome business but there are some lessons to be learned here on effective sticker design. If your business is unique and you want to stand out from the crowd, your stickers need to do the same thing. They are your calling card (as a side note, the business card designs in Rome are also very weak) – they reflect the personality (identity) of your business and should not just be like a listing in a directory.
And, if you are going to alter a landscape with guerrilla sticker campaigns or sticker advertising doesn’t it make sense to connect, entertain, ask questions, make people think, and share a bit of your unique value? Good advertising needs to be a whole lot more than just showing up.
First Dates and Sticker Design
Jeff Nicholson is the founder and Creative Director at 
2 Responses
Thanks for sharing this.
It would make a great test or case study to make a well-designed sticker for one of those companies and see if they get increased calls from it! Amazing that they all do the same layout. It really does look like a directory on a wall.