A billboard that kills mosquitoes and other cutting-edge signs

Billboards aren't just for advertising anymore. Some are designed to do social good — like fighting disease, cleaning the air and providing shelter.

This comes as more and more cities like São Paulo, Vancouver and Quebec City are implementing or considering restrictions or bans on billboards. And it's about more than doing away with "visual pollution." 

• Floating billboards banned from Vancouver waters

Billboard advertising is actually a part of the architecture of a city. But many people don't appreciate ads that are forced upon us — those we can't click away or toss in the recycling.

In response, some marketers are erecting billboards that citizens may actually find desirable.

For example, instead of simply distracting drivers and spoiling the view, some Brazilian billboards are doing something useful. Posted by local ad agencies, the boards say, "This billboard kills hundreds of Zika mosquitoes every day."

Not only do they raise awareness of Zika, the billboards actually do something to stop its spread.

A device inside the billboard emits a spray that mimics human smell and breath, drawing mosquitoes inside it. The mosquitoes are then trapped and die of dehydration.

And the technology behind the billboard has been made available free online under a Creative Commons license.

In neighbouring Lima, Peru, the problem is lack of water. The city only gets about a centimetre of rain per year, yet atmospheric humidity is 98 per cent. Enter a local engineering college, eager to spotlight its ingenuity and generate admissions with an innovative billboard — one that produces drinking water for nearby residents.

Technology built into the billboard draws humidity from the air, and converts it into drinking water.

Thousands of litres of potable water were produced in the first three months, helping hundreds of families.

A year later, the same college posted a billboard on the construction site of its new campus with a built-in air purification device. According to the engineers, it removed as much construction pollution out of the air as 1,200 trees.

In the U.K., a winery posted a billboard to call attention to the problem of dwindling honey bees. To create extra buzz, the winery invisibly spelled its message using queen bee pheromones. The billboard harmlessly attracted a swarm of bees that obligingly spelled out "S.O.S." — in this case, meaning "save our swarm." The winery also donated five pence (about eight Canadian cents) from each special edition bottle sold to help preserve bees.

In the U.S., IBM was looking for a way to promote its very technical-sounding Smarter Cities initiative.

In order to make the initiative more understandable, IBM posted a series of whimsical, but useful, billboards — designed to show how a common feature of cities could easily be transformed into something functional.

The bottom of one board, for example, curved out to create a bench. On another, the top curved out to create a rain shelter. A third billboard formed a stairway ramp. And all the boards invited people to submit their own smarter cities ideas.

By re-imagining billboards in socially-conscious ways, marketers bring attention to their products, as well as making billboards more useful — so they're less likely to be banned.

Bruce Chambers is a syndicated advertising columnist for CBC Radio.