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Blogger in Buenos Aires
July 5, 2008

I’ve been traveling almost constantly since early June, first to Düsseldorf, then Stuttgart, then home for four days, and then off to South America. I’ve just spent a week in Buenos Aires observing the quality of printing on flyers for strip clubs that are thrust in my face by hawkers on the Avenida Florida. Now I have moved my base of operations to Uruguay, where so far I have not had anything thrust in my face by anyone. It’s much calmer here.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a city of about 14 million people; that’s nearly half the population of the entire country. Magazine stands are full of titles, newspapers – including one in English – are published for every interest. The Argentine economy is on the rocks, but despite that, the domestic graphic arts business seems to be doing fine. In the plaza in front of the government building is a water canon, an ominous piece of police hardware which I was told was put to use just a week ago against farmers who organized a strike against a proposed export tax on their produce. Printed posters in support of the farmers are everywhere.

Across the street from my hotel was an office of Quebecor World, which operates several plants in Argentina. Small copy shops, ink-jet houses and walk-in printing firms are very common. It’s very much like New York City, but in Spanish, and (this is hard to believe) the sidewalks are in worse condition.

The cell phone business is very vibrant in Argentina, dominated by a firm called Claro, whose advertising slogan is: “Es Claro” which means “it’s clear.” Claro’s name is unavoidable in Buenos Aires, as they have sponsored the street signs in the capital city. Before I figured that out, I was getting the impression that every street was named “Claro” – but then it sunk in... now it’s clear that the city of Buenos Aires took a handsome sum of money from the cell phone supplier to put their name on every street corner in the city. It’s brilliant advertising. This same cell phone supplier has a robust wireless network which supports USB plug-in tranceivers you see used on lap-top computers all over the city. I have seen these in the U.S., but not nearly as many. If Claro has a competitor I am unaware of it, a sign of how successfully Claro has dominated the scene.

On the idea of sponsored street signs, Perhaps Germany can get their cell phone supplier – Einbahnstrasse – to give them money. Or perhaps that other company, Ausfahrt, will put up some money in to support the new German recycling program.


Any way you look at it, it’s good for the graphics business to have a sign on every street corner.

Posted by Brian Lawler on July 5, 2008 | Comments (0)