We are often very aware of the general role of advertising in ordering the material world, organising social relations and the significance of advertising in urban spaces. Advertising is a core element in the visual mix of the city-- the complex interplay between the architecture of shops, hotels, and casinos, and the illuminated signs and advertising billboards which lined the routes to and around these sites.

So we have an understanding of city spaces as sign systems and a conception of the city as a site of consumption that we read or interpret in some form.

Advertising marks the everyday, routine experience of traveling to and around cities, and it has become a staple, taken-for-granted element of our cities. Advertising has an impact regardless of whether or not we register the textual messages of specific campaigns.

The various rhythms of the city--going to and from work, the rules of traffic control, the pattern of children going to and from school, or the opening and closing times of shops--- that help produce forms of knowledge of the city suggests that as we moving through the spaces of the city we don't actively `decode' or respond to advertising messages that are presented to us in in any focused or consistent manner.