Living On The Streets of Philadelphia

Does a better sign lead to
better donations?

While attending AdWeek in New York one year I noticed a homeless man’s sign that read, “Might As Well Be Invisible.” It made me think. Why did that sign catch my attention while other signs often don’t? Does a better sign lead to better donations? It’s like we walk around with these mental ad blockers in place for every day life things, like a homeless person's sign. We see a person in the street with a sign and we immediately ‘opt out’ and ignore them. We forget that these are people too, and their signs are essentially advertisements. However, these advertisements aren’t there to make a business profitable, these advertisements keep people alive.

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The question I sought to answer was, ‘Does the copy and design of a homeless person’s sign affect the engagement from the public?’ To test the idea, I created three different signs for three different days. Day 1: Test (Generic Sign & Copy) Day 2: Updated Copy Day 3: Design Added to Copy. Everything would be filmed, so I could go back and measure the number of people who engaged or donated money. The twist I threw in there, which made no one happy (family, friends and coworkers), was that I would spend the entirety of this experiment living in the streets, and only off of the money that I brought in.