Keep it down out there! 18 Apr 2008

In an attempt to emphasise how quiet their appliances are, AEG Electrolux has launched an innovative advertising campaign to show us how noisy everything else in the world is. Billboards like the one above (which, incidentally, is just around the corner from our office) have been fitted with LED decibel meters and installed in London, Madrid, Berlin, Brussels and Milan to make passers-by aware of the noise that constantly surrounds them. There's even a companion website that compares the current noise level in each of the five cities.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project is the unanticipated consequences that it has produced. Apparently, in some of the cities, kids are intentionally screaming and making noise near the billboards to see if they can get the numbers to rise, and elsewhere, a local nightclub that sits underneath one of the billboards has been taking pictures of it to prove how quiet it stays when parties are raging on inside!

[via Brand Flakes for Breakfast]