&gt; Some places suffer from excessive advertising, other places are energized by it, and the actual contents, presentation, placement, and other details, all of which are intimately tied in with the local culture, matter a great deal as well.<p>São Paulo was very much like that. Billboards were all over, some were captivating and cool and there were even innovative moving billboards people talked about. Small businesses got creative with theirs and changed their façades in ways that were immediately recognizable. Brazilians are very connected to advertising, so much so that it seeps its way into popular lexicon and shape colloquial language.<p>Yet, no one misses them now. No one has asked for them to come back. No one will.<p>Ads are much less an intrinsic cultural phenomenon than you think. We think they matter to culture simply because they exist, but their absence has no important effect on it.