A controversial digital billboard above the M32 near Stapleton Road has been covered in paint in a targeted overnight action by activists.
Activist group BADASS (Bristol Against Digital Advertising Screens) have claimed responsibility for the action. BADASS recently gave a new digital billboard on Bond Street the same treatment.
As of Thursday morning (August 31) the M32 screen was peppered with paint blotches and the base of the billboard had been tagged with the group’s name.
The M32 billboard, one of two on the same stretch of road owned by outdoor media company Global, is one of the biggest in the city and has previously been the subject of a campaign by Adblock Bristol to secure its removal.
Read more: The fight to end corporate advertising in Bristol
A survey conducted by Adblock Bristol over winter 2020-2021 collected the views of over 100 local residents regarding the billboards. The responses revealed resentment about the presence of the screens.
One resident said: ‘It feels like a horrible dystopian nightmare.’ Another: ‘I feel frustrated and disappointed whenever I pass the billboard. I find it invasive, and feel like the advertisers’ agenda is being forced on me.’ And a third: ‘They make our part of the city feel like an unloved industrial wasteland.’
