Every once in a while, I like to do an analysis of the billboards on the section of I-15 I drive through most often — from Provo to Salt Lake City. Just to take the temperature of where we are as a people and a culture.
We’ve been through a few different billboard eras in recent memory. Together we’ve mourned the loss of the Peterson Marine billboard with the giant boat bursting through the bottom half. The LDS Millionaire looking for a wife billboard was a personal obsession. But my favorite era was the Cavalia Era, where every single billboard on I–15 was an advertisement for Cavalia. As far as I could tell, Cavalia was a horse circus. Not a circus for horses. A circus with horse performers. But I have no way of verifying that assessment because despite the seemingly unlimited marketing budget, no one I know purchased a ticket to Cavallia. It may not have actually existed. It may have just been horse-appreciation billboards.
Since then we’ve had one other specific billboard era last summer — the Julia Reagan era. All at once billboards popped up all over the valley honoring the recently deceased Mrs. Reagan, the matriarch of the Reagan family who owns the billboards. Overnight Julia became an icon.
But now that Cavalia has left town and the number of Julia billboards have diminished, many of the billboards have returned to the standard personal injury lawyer advertisements featuring men in suits with nervous smiles and cringey slogans.
Now, instead of a distinct era, we have a few different, wacky billboards that turn heads and make me ask — Who are we? The answer, according to the enormous signs that line I-15, is that we are a tech-forward, blanket-loving people getting questionable plastic surgery who still have no idea what Shen Yun is.
Our billboards now fit into a few fun categories:
The blanket wars
Minky Couture has long been known for having the softest blankets in town and a prolific advertising campaign. I don’t remember driving north or south without seeing a Minky Couture billboard. These billboards typically evoke cuteness and coziness. Mothers and children wrapped in blankets.
But now a new blanket has arrived, and its advertising dares to ask the question — what if a blanket could make you hot? The ads feature hot people, in the case of men hot topless people, not really using the blankets but instead holding them in a way that best displays the definition of their muscles. Is this false advertising? I couldn’t say. I own a Minky Couture blanket that I love and it does indeed make me cozy. In fact I sleep with it every night. I do not yet own a Lola, which I’ve heard are great. But I’ve heard nothing about whether or not they create chiseled abs and smoldering smiles.
The official everything of the Utah Jazz
At any given time, there is at least one billboard advertising The Official [fill in the blank] of the Utah Jazz or The Utah Hockey Club, our professional basketball and hockey teams, respectively. Most recently it was “The Official Peanut Butter of the Utah Jazz” with an image of the branded peanut butter. I assume this means that the peanut butter company sponsors the Jazz. But I like to imagine all of the players voting on their favorite peanut butter before erecting the billboard. Just as a PSA.
There’s actually a fun crossover here because according to one billboard, Lola, the hot people blanket, is the official blanket of the Utah Jazz. And now that I’m thinking about it those players do have pretty solid six-packs, so maybe there’s something there …
Plastic surgery advertisements with imperceptible differences
I’m not anti-plastic surgery and I’m not here to make some sanctimonious statement about accepting our bodies and condemning those who choose to make some surgical tweaks. But I am anti the Body by Vincent billboards because I’m positive they’re going to cause a car accident.
We’ve seen two versions of this billboard now. One with two photos of a bare torso side-by-side, and one with two photos of the back of a pair of shoulders and arms, one photo on top of the other. In both the case of the torsos and the arms, I cannot tell a difference between the two photos other than darker lighting. It feels like one of those activities that comes printed on a kid’s menu that’s handed out with a box of crayons — circle the differences. But I can’t. And every time I drive by I’m trying to figure out what it is and that’s not what I should be concentrating on while driving.
Firefly
There are a few billboards that simply say “Firefly” over the color palette of the sunset and the shadow of a child on a bike. Sometimes the signs read, “A new kind of community.” The intent is clearly to get drivers to Google it. And I hate to admit that it worked on me and I did, indeed, Google it. And what I learned was that Firefly is the latest in an ever-expanding list of housing developments with vague, naturalistic titles. According to the Firefly website, it will be a place where kids will play outside, not on the phone. Which I guess means they’re building a place where winter doesn’t exist. Congrats to all involved in this groundbreaking meteorological achievement.
Tech alley
Once one rounds the bend into Lehi, there are a slew of billboards with words that might as well be written in a foreign language because they mean nothing to anyone who does not work in the tech industry. Sometimes it’s a joke about coding. Sometimes it’s an appeal to potential employees. Sometimes it’s a brag about revenue. Whatever flavor of tech jargon I’m looking at, it might as well be in Greek.
Shen Yun
I don’t know if Shen Yun — a dance performance that tells the story of Ancient China, I think — has been playing in Utah for 10 years straight or if the billboards have simply been up that long. Much like Cavalia, I don’t know anyone who has been or has any plans to go but I think we all find a lot of comfort in knowing that at any given time, Shen Yun is being performed somewhere for someone and the billboards will never go away.
The characters on these billboards have become friends to me. The cozy moms and hot blanket holders. Julia Reagan. The Shen Yun dancers and the personal injury lawyers. The peanut-butter-loving Jazz team. Even the people who got invasive surgery for zero differences to their body, though I do worry about them.
I’ve grown to love and appreciate them all, and look forward to seeing them anytime I make my way north or south.