Human billboard

A human billboard is someone who applies an advertisement on his or her person. Most commonly, this means holding or wearing a sign of some sort, but also may include wearing advertising as clothing or in extreme cases, having advertising tattooed on the body. Sign holders are known as human directionals in the advertising industry, or colloquially as sign walkers, sign wavers, sign twirlers or (in British territories) sandwich men. Frequently, they will spin or dance or wear costumes with the promotional sign in order to attract attention.

Human billboards have been used for centuries. In 19th century London, the practice began when advertising posters became subject to a tax and competition for wall space became fierce. Prince Pückler-Muskau described the activity in 1820s London as such:

Formerly people were content to paste advertisements up; now they are ambulant. One man had a pasteboard hat, three times as high as other hats, on which is written in great letters, "Boots at twelve shillings a pair—warranted".

Furthermore, besides holding signs, some human billboards would wear sandwich boards. Charles Dickens described these advertisers as "a piece of human flesh between two slices of paste board". It was claimed in The Times in mid-1823 that such human billboards were a London invention—while a familiar sight in London, the "biped advertisement" was new in Paris at that time.

A man walks the Palais Royal and the most frequented streets in the neighbourhood, with one large placard covering the whole of his back, and another extending along the front part of his body down to his knees. It contains the announcement of a new coach between London and Paris. On the back he bears the French, and on his breast the English. The French have given this non-descript animal—this walking placard—the title of l'Homme-affiche, or biped advertisement.

The banning of posters from private property in London in 1839 greatly increased the use of human billboards. As the novelty of seeing humans carrying placards wore off, advertisers would come up with variations on the theme in order to catch the eye, such as having a "parade" of identical human billboards, or having the human billboards wear outrageous costumes.

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Wikipedia