Sign Sign everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read
the sign
This song by the 5 Man Electric Band relays
what many of us think about the proliferation of advertising. Advertising is
everywhere—signs on the fence at baseball fields, billboards dotting the
highways, buses, race cars and pop-up advertising on websites. Advertising
extends to branding college bowl games with the Capital One Bowl (formerly the
Tangerine Bowl and the Florida Citrus Bowl), the Chick-fil-A Bowl (formerly the
Peach Bowl), the Allstate Sugar Bowl (formerly Sugar Bowl which is played in
the Mercedes-Benz Superdome). You can see the clever advertising angles here.
What else is fair game for an advertising medium? Will we one day brand
hurricanes, stars in the sky, newly found planets, etc.?
In the current digital age, advertising has taken on new forms and
means of reaching an audience, even a specific segment of an audience. Search
advertising and digital display advertising are the top two forms of digital
advertising, according to The State of the News Media 2013. This
report predicts that by 2016, digital display advertising will be the top form
of digital advertising. No surprise as to which search company leads in digital
advertising—Google. Tibken, a writer for CNET News, reports that in the first
half of 2012, Google made more money than all U.S. print media combined—at least
$20.8 billion. To be fair, Google is a world-wide entity, but these numbers
surely stand out as a testament to the popularity of digital advertising. An eMarketer report said that digital global
advertising spending as a whole topped
$100 billion in 2012 and predicts the next few years will see much growth.
From my readings and research I have learned that about 40% to 50% of
adults own a smart phone. Those of us who do are familiar with some form digital
advertising through the phone. My WSFA
weather app has banner advertising at the top that changes every time I open
the app. My AP mobile app has banner advertising at the bottom. As noisome as
these may be, we learn to live with them; they are part of the digital
landscape. Smart phones have given advertisers a new frontier—location-based
advertising. Our phones are mobile; they go with us from location to location.
Why not have advertising that also goes from location to location—ads change to
fit our surroundings. Adfonic’s Geo-location White Paper uses the
terms geo-targeting, meaning a “geographically
recognised region, such as a State or city” and ringfencing which is the ability to direct ads bases on a specific
location such as retail outlet or hotel chain. Many of us have used our
phone’s navigation apps. We know we must turn on the GPS signal of our phone in
order for the navigation app to locate the phone and direct us to our
destination. On a recent trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, I found
location-based ads appeared on several of my phone’s apps along with coupons
for tourist attractions in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Groupon, LivingSocial,
and many other apps direct specials and coupons to our phones directed by our
location.
Lauren
Hockenson article, “Bright Lights, Big City,” has an
overview of the latest in digital display options. One of the coolest digital displays available are the displays that
resemble a hologram—a virtual assistant display. Several of these are already in
use at airports in Washington, D. C., Dubai, and Edinburgh. Tensator’s Virtual Assistants can be located
in airports to assist passengers, retail locations to build sales, or anywhere
to assist with information, guidance or purchase ideas. They speak any language,
and motion sensors can be integrated so that the assistants are not continually
repeating a message. Tensator says their Virtual Assistant is “completely customizable.”
This brings audience entertainment as well as information--increasing sales and
foot traffic. Casio has a Virtual Presenter that is
described as an interactive display that is also “completely customizable.”
Casio’s Virtual Presenter will run for almost ten years without taking a break!
Wow! The uses for these virtual assistants seem unlimited.
Another type of digital display is one
found on street corners—an intelligent lamppost. The developer of the
lamppost, Ron Harwood, worked at Disney before developing his intelligent
lamppost. Intellistreets is a lamppost with
built-in signage and has the capability to alert passersby to possible safety
concerns or directions. The lamppost has a camera and a microphone to sense
problems in the area. The lamppost can play music, announcements, count
pedestrian traffic, and, yes, it offers street lighting. Cities can install
these not only to assist citizens, but also to sell advertising. There is some
controversy about these being a "Big Brother" tool, but Howard
says, "If you look at all the city services that could be accomplished wirelessly and all the budgets that are being accomplished to do these things, including gunshot detection and traffic cameras, we are layering costs that Intellistreets solves with one unit." These innovations take digital displays to new hieghts, and they offer an amazing technology.
I don’t know that anyone can predict where this technology will go in
the next few years, but it is clear that our world has embraced digital
technology and digital advertising. Remember our first mobile phones—those huge bag phones we lugged
around? We thought those were the best invention! Now we use our smart phones
as our mobile laptop computer. Personally, I can’t wait to see what’s next in
the digital world!
No comments:
Post a Comment