Lamar Advertising Apologizes for Boise Billboard
By Greg Pruett • August 14, 2020Every now and then a controversial billboard pops up across the country that causes quite a stir.
Most of the time the billboards that cause the most controversy are political. With large billboard companies, such billboards usually go through a vetting process with the wording and artwork.
Yesterday, citizens in Boise were upset about a billboard that was posted depicting a burning police car and what many called a racist message with it.
Lamar, the company that owns the billboard, has now apologized on their Facebook page.
The company claimed that the ad was posted mistakenly and said that it was not vetted prior to being posted.
We reached out to Lamar General Manager in Boise, Larry Alder, to ask for clarification on how the mistake was made. We have not yet received a response from him.
If he responds to our inquiry we will update our article for our readers.
Tanisha Jae Newton was the individual, not with Lamar, who wanted the message posted on the Boise billboard. She was a local high school student teacher at Borah High School up until May of 2019.
She posted on Instagram yesterday with a message about the billboard project she worked on:
For her part, Newton asks those who support the billboard to send her some money if they approve. If they do not approve, she tells them that they can get out of her way.
Here is the image of the controversial billboard itself:
A number of citizens were posting online and many of the comments that we observed were not happy about the billboard being posted. Quite a few of them felt the billboard was racist and was inciting violence.
Here is a screenshot of some of those comments:
Not everyone was opposed to the billboard, however.
Newton’s Instagram post had several individuals who supported her efforts. The post has over 2,000 “Likes” on it.
Here are a few comments supporting the billboard:
Despite several individuals commenting in support of the billboard, most of the comments were not in favor of the messaging.
Idaho Dispatch reached out to several of the other advertisers who were in the rotating ad cycle for the digital billboard for comment.
Currently, only Mountain America Credit Union responded to our inquiry. Here is what they told us,
Good morning Greg,
Thank you for reaching out. We received word the billboard in question has been removed by the sign company.
Regards,
Mountain America Credit Union
What do you think of the billboard and Lamar’s apology?
Let us know in the comments below.
Tags: Billboard, Black Lives Matter, Borah High School, Lamar, Newton, Police Car
26 thoughts on “Lamar Advertising Apologizes for Boise Billboard”
Comments are closed.
Glad you removed it. The racist, divisive message was was inappropriate!
Lamar Advertising’s apology is NOT nearly enough. These people who submitted the ad is nothing but ‘people’ that want nothing but to inflame Boise into the dregs of those cities already in a depredated decline, such as Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, and now, Bend, OR. We, in Idaho, will NOT let that happen. They want to test us, then beware!!
Right on!
I agree! There is no room in Boise for this kind of hate.
That should never have been put up in the first place. The person who put it up is a mental case. These kind of people don’t belong in the state of Idaho.
There is no way this was a mistake. Being familiar with the ad purchasing process, there is WAY too many people and steps involved, an ad has to go through before it gets displayed at the site. Lamar got caught taking money without a second thought of the morals this state, and the local community holds, and got ‘busted’ doing it. They deserve every email and phone call they get, regardless of removing it.
Exactly. Wait until the silent majority become the “we are fed up with you” majority.
Glad it’s down, but not happy. This should NEVER have been put up. Several people messed up at Lamar. This was racist and threatening and most likely to incite violence. Don’t let what’s going on elsewhere, happen in The state of Idaho and Boise.
If you go to Lamar’s Facebook page and then click on the facebook pages of some of the employees there you will see this is who they actually are. The apology is fake and only trying to salvage their business.
The same kind of apology as the owner of the Girabaldi Restaurant gave for his entry flying the American flag upside down at the Jerome County Fair parade. Boycotting these type of businesses is all they will understand.
I’m not following with what you’re getting at. How does their Facebook page show anything on one side of the fence or the other??
Lamar has a history of displaying billboard that support abortion and other things that are sexually explicit based on FB comments I read last night. To say this was an error by an employee not following process is a stretch in my opinion. If I had an employee that missed the mark that badly, they would have been immediately terminated. I bet money if it had been a conservative leaning billboard error, the employee would have already been fired.
Let’s keep the heat on this company since the young person who started the billboard said she now has enough money to do another billboard in Lewiston.
I believe this was meant to be malicious, there are many channels to go through to make this happen. FAKE APOLOGY!
We don’t need this in Boise or in Idaho period. All races worked TOGETHER to build this Country AND this area. Maybe if we quit identifying by color, and were just Americans, and treated each other as such, things wouldn’t be SO divided.
The person who wanted this up has done nothing for America and has spent most if not all her life living off mommies and daddies dime—. It was totally offensive to everyone who has contributed to America. All colors have contributed to make this country and to say just two is ignorant and disrespectful.
Maybe we have enough advertising in our lives.. maybe we need to remove the billboards from blocking our views of our beautiful state…???
I would be in favor of removing billboards throughout the state..
So decisive! We need to start self identifying as Americans! Inclusivity is the only answer!
We let the Invaders stay in our country and steal what the White man created, and this is how they show their appreciation, now are you fence sitters ready to regain your ancient Viking courage and drive the Invaders into the sea with fire and steel?
Y’all have blacks in Idaho?
Absolutely offensive and designed to incite violence. Very weak apology from billboard company, which I also find offensive. Real Americans need to wake up and show their desire to do right. This is not Idaho, and I hope we can overcome these negative ideas in what was once the greatest city in America!!!
I am also disturbed that this woman was a student teacher at Borah in 2019. I would be very upset is she were teaching my children and indoctrinating young minds with her views. Not to mention, the treatment of students who don’t fit her “agenda”.
I am writing to
Larry Alder, Manager
Lamar Advertising
2250 Empire Way
Boise, Idaho 83709
to express my opposition and concern about this billboard. I am expressing neither hate nor vitriol. Simply disapproval. I am writing this in longhand (egads!) in hope that he will take actions to see this doesn’t happen again.
The statement that “Black and Brown folks built this country” is arguably correct, if not complete (they had a LITTLE help, after all!) But what interests me is that one of the most significant factors in “building this country” was the construction of the Transcontinental Railway. That, despite the shenanigans of of the developers, was accomplishe by poor Irish and Eastern European immigrants (AKA “navvies”) on the Union Pacific side, and mostly recruited Chinese on the Central Pacific side. Yet those unsung folks are left out of this particular narrative because it doesn’t fit into the story that folks with a particular ax to grind are telling.
It is so sad that this person is trying to start racial division here. Please go away and take your hate somewhere else
United we stand. Divided we fall. It really is that simple. We are smack dab in the middle of the latter unfortunately.