First French road signs pointed straight to Citroen

By ALASTAIR SLOANE motoring editor

If road signs could talk they would tell the story of a pioneer of industry and communication. At the beginning of the 1920s, road signs in France were few and far between. French carmakers Mors and Dion put up some, as did tyremaker Michelin, but they had little success.

In 1922, turning up where he was least expected, Andre Citroen decided to take the matter in hand. Maybe he was pursuing dreams of grandeur, or perhaps it was just his extraordinary business acumen, but the founding father of Citroen put up tens of thousands of signs throughout France.

They weren't just ordinary signs, because as well as providing information on road safety regulations and distances, they all indicated the same address: Citroen.

"Each sign will feature our double chevron, a blue background with the chevrons and a crimped surround in yellow," Citroen said.

By putting its badge on every sign, Citroen organised the greatest outdoor advertising campaign in history.

"This publicity," a Citroen executive said, "built the popularity of Citroen by providing motorists with a service and constantly bombarded users with the same message every time they looked up to find their way."

By 1925, Citroen had 65,000 road signs in France. The 100,000th was put up in the village of Lucey, in the Savoie region. Overall, 160,000 signs were put on poles and buildings throughout France and its colonies.

Citroen devoted a whole department to booking orders, production and shipment of its banner-bearing signs.

The carmaker even had teams on the road to repair damaged signs. The stringent standards applied to car production also applied to the signs.

They were made of stamped oval metal panels, slightly curved for rigidity and with a 2cm-thick reinforcing strip around the edge, which stopped them bending when tightened.

Citroen had strict guidelines. The main aim was to get the best locations, mostly on stone walls and the sides of buildings. To do this it was necessary to work with local authorities.

Citroen's recommendations said: "An owner rarely refuses a request for authorisation to put up road signs if the request comes from a representative of the municipality. He is far more likely to refuse one of our agents since the request will look like an advertising initiative."

Citroen's plan was warmly welcomed by authorities and a Government circular of April 2, 1930, declared it to be in the public interest.

Although the programme played a major role in building the reputation of Citroen in the 1920s and 30s, it gradually came to an end.

The signs were costly to maintain. As well, new government regulations said a company's name must be limited to 10 per cent of the surface area of the sign. And other companies were putting up their own signs.

But the programme secured the reputation of Andre Citroen forever, not only as a clever carmaker but as an entrepreneur.