Two “future of advertising” articles caught my eye in the Straits Times today and it was interesting to compare them.
The first was about Cisco Systems’ video billboards, which are available now. These combine a digital media player with management software to control the signs, giving stores, banks, restaurants etc the power to replace their billboards with video. Cisco is expecting it to be a US$3.63 billion market by 2011.
The second was about ColorZip software for handphones. By pointing the phone’s camera at 3D barcodes (which could be on posters, products on shelves, bus shelters, anywhere) the phone scans the barcode and logs on to the net, retrieves some item of information and brings it back to your phone. So, for example, a movie poster might bring back screening details. A barcode could bring back text, music, video, photos… anything you could imagine surfing the net to find. This technology is also currently available. If you visit Singaporean telco M1’s auction page and scroll to the bottom you’ll see one potential application. Point your phone at the screen and it will log your phone into the auction system so you can start bidding on something immediately.
It came at an interesting time for me because I recently read a New York Times article “Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely To See An Ad” which discusses how blank spaces are fast on the way to extinction. In the US, supermarket eggs have been stamped with the names of CBS television shows. Subway turnstiles bear messages from Geico auto
insurance. Chinese food cartons promote Continental Airways. US Airways is selling ads on motion sickness
bags. And the trays used in airport security lines have been hawking
Rolodexes.
Marketers used to try their hardest to reach people at home, when
they were watching TV or reading newspapers or magazines. But
consumers’ viewing and reading habits are so scattershot now that many
advertisers say the best way to reach time-pressed consumers is to try
to catch their eye at literally every turn.
“We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in
time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere,” said Linda Kaplan
Thaler, chief executive at the Kaplan Thaler Group, a New York ad
agency. “Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.”
What it’s leading to, of course, is sensory overload and it’s spiralling out of control. The landscape is getting more and more saturated, so companies are pushing harder and harder. No space is being left unplastered.
One of these two “future of advertising” products works on old-school paradigms and adds yet more clutter to the sensory landscape. Yet of the two it is probably (at least currently) the “easiest sell” to clients and agencies who are still thinking in terms of “interruption”. You can imagine some client saying “oh yeah, we can really show off the benefits of our product with one of these babies!”
The other offers interesting possibilities for consumer engagement. There are really some exciting potential benefits for us, as users.
If I had to choose only one company to put my money behind it’d be a tough choice… but I think I’d choose ColorZip just because it truly fires my imagination!
Pic by coolest-gadgets.com
2 Comments
April 8, 2009 at 9:26 am
Colorzip has been around for a while now.. zapcode (under SPH I think) has been aronud for at least 1.5 years. But I don’t see a very high take-up.
It seems more apt as a measurement tool for offline media, and using content as a bait to measure engagement.
April 8, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hi Richard… wow, that’s an old post… scary looking at my predictions in retrospect. =p
I just did some video billboards for a client in Australia. I’ve never used or done anything with ColorZip.
And there I was saying I’d put my money behind ColorZip. It’s that kind of insight that’s kept me broke and dreaming.
=) Marc