Billboards for memorials and birthdays are booming on the South Side: 'It’s a status thing'

Justice Calcote wanted to memorialize her grandmother in a big way when she died in 2021.

She didn’t want to have a party. Everyone else had those. “I just wanted to do something that everybody can see,” said Calcote, 29.

So she bought space on a billboard overlooking Interstate 290, near where she grew up in Bellwood with her grandma Mickey Burnett. Burnett raised her to be tough, her granddaughter says. She was devastated when she died of natural causes.

“Happy 68th birthday grandma,” the billboard read, with a photo of Burnett smiling down. The ad ran for three days, cycling every 30 seconds. She gathered family and friends near the billboard for a balloon release. She’s repeated it each year on Oct. 14, her grandmother’s birthday, buying a $1,200 billboard to share how much she loved her grandma.

Billboards celebrating birthdays — and, in Calcote’s case, “heavenly birthdays” for the deceased — have proliferated across the country since the pandemic lockdown, according to industry insiders.

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The trend did not appear randomly. The concept of birthday billboards has been marketed since at least 2012. People have also used billboards to celebrate occasions such as Mother’s Day and graduations. One man in Wisconsin bought one to find a date. Another placed a billboard to save their favorite streaming show.

The people who design and sell them say birthday-themed billboards have proliferated due to the availability of digital billboards — allowing for shorter, less-expensive ads — and the allure of an advertising medium usually reserved for name brands.

It’s also due to a bit of gossip.

“I think it’s more word of mouth than anything. We haven’t advertised it,” said T.J. Simpson, sales manager at Lamar Advertising’s Orland Park office.

Simpson said he would get two or three calls a month for birthday billboards a few years ago. Now, it’s five or six calls a week, mostly for billboards in the south suburbs along the Stevenson and Bishop Ford expressways.

There’s a 50/50 split between people buying birthday and “heavenly birthday” billboards for loved ones who have died, he said.

Billboards cost between $350 and $2,000 depending on how many are bought and how long they’re up. People usually buy something between a day and a week.

Some of the biggest billboard companies refuse to sell short ad runs, requiring weekslong minimum purchases for even digital billboards. That’s too expensive for people seeking birthday ad space, said Sam Shah, president of Skokie-based AdTime Marketing.

Shah, who counts Calcote as a customer, has seen an influx of requests for birthday billboards over the past four years. They were nearly all referrals. His company designs the layout of the billboard and arranges the sale with a billboard owner.

“When people think of billboards, they think of big-impact advertising,” he said.

“Being able to have a family member on a board means something to them,” he added.

Jasmine Billions, CEO of Atlanta-based E&J Billboards, said Chicago is a hotspot for heavenly birthday billboards. She also gets requests to help people place birthday billboards in cities across the county including Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas — and even recently in South Dakota.

People are drawn to the allure of billboards, she said. Sometimes they’re shared widely online.

“It goes crazy on social media because it feels like you made it,” she said. “It’s a status thing.”

Jim Vondruska / Sun-Times

That factored into Tasha Simon’s decision to buy a billboard on the Near West Side in February to celebrate her late mother’s 79th birthday. Her mom, who was known as Baby Ruth Simon, died in 2001.

“This is more epic,” said Simon, 49. She had previously organized parties, barbecues, balloon releases and gravesite visits every year since her mom died. She got the idea for a billboard from a relative who recently placed one.

“It’s like the whole world can see your loved one,” Simon said. “You do your best to keep their memory alive the best way you can.”

The billboards sometimes go viral online. Dozens of videos posted to TikTok show unsuspecting people being surprised by their friends and partners with birthday-themed billboard spots in Times Square, New York City, where at least two companies sell ad spots specifically for that purpose.

Besides celebrating birthdays, digital billboards allow companies to promote very time-specific events, according to a spokesman for Outfront, a major advertising company with billboards in Chicago. Digital billboards can be updated so quickly, they can display day-of wins for sports teams and even up-to-date scores. The company said birthday message billboards comprise “a very small segment” of its sales.

Calcote’s family has been inspired by the yearly billboard she buys to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday. Her cousin recently bought a billboard to celebrate her son’s birthday, she said.

“I haven’t figured out another way to celebrate my grandma and show her off,” she said. “I don’t think anything else can top” a billboard.