Saturday, July 6, 2013

SIGN SIGN EVERYWHERE A SIGN

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!





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