Will You Ever Be Able To Look At A Space Without Advertising Again?

from the your-ad-here! dept

Certain advertisers are starting to realize that any blank space that people look at, for any length of time, can be used for advertising. All those blanks walls in stores? Wasted space! And, now they're looking to take what they (haven't) learned from advertising online, and make sure that the advertising you're inundated with is personalized to you. It may not be long until you're walking around a store and discover that an ad targeted directly at you is following you around on the wall. Sound creepy? Hell yes, but it appears not everyone has figured that out yet. Perhaps some people should take a step back and look at just how well this sort of "plan" has worked out online. Every blank space is filled with flashing, squawking, bleeping banner ads - and everyone ignores them. What about personalization? Well, so far, despite plenty of information on what I surf, it doesn't look like any of these "sophisticated" advertising systems has any idea what's remotely interesting to me. So, now they expect that this will suddenly work if the ads are shown on the walls of stores? Seems doubtful. And, how do they plan to know who you are and what you might be interested in a real world devoid of deposited cookies? They have lots of ideas, from monitoring your mobile phone (you can fill out a "survey" which your phone will broadcast to all the advertising projectors surrounding you) to doing face recognition on the fly.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Filly, 16 Dec 2003 @ 11:27am

    No Subject Given

    Sounds too much akin to the advertisers inundating Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Life imitating Art?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    rsa, 18 Dec 2003 @ 12:41am

    RFID

    The RFID tags in your clothes of course! (Though your mobile would be a good stop gap until they get all the tags in place)

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.