There are few places where advertising has not yet intruded.
Coca-Cola once tried to project its logo onto the moon, but the FAA vetoed this as it was worried that it would fry the circuitry in aircraft. However, other brands are now diligently searching for ways to intrude on the pallid bliss of a moonlit night.
Rental DVDs now precede the movie with ads, somehow disabling the fast forward no matter how hard you push on the button (or how much you scream).
A walk in the woods will soon involve branded squirrels.
And now your friendly mobile is becoming the latest conduit of spam.
The city is being gradually mined with small transmitting towers that will hit you with spam as you stroll the streets. They lurk high in the rooves sniffing for your bluetooth aura.
Ok, there are only a few of them now, but they may some day end up like buskers, just far apart from each other so as not to intrude on each other’s small catchment area. Could this mean a text message every twenty metres?
Well . . . advertisers love the idea of bluetooth marketing because it doesn’t go over the mobile data networks so there’s no data charge. They can also make ads location specific, for example: they can notify passers by to special offers in a shopping centre.
A problem with this kind of marketing is that many phones have their bluetooth set by default to undiscoverable. To counteract this, advertisers are placing traditional poster ads imploring people to switch their bluetooth on so that they can receive an ad. Yes, there are now ads for ads.
So we do have a way of screening out these ads, but if we are forced to disable bluetooth, well then they will still remain an intrusion. Undoubtedly, there will be regulation. In Germany, advertising promotions are now restricted to broadcasting a signal to within one metre of the sign advertising the offer. At present, some versions of Bluetooth can send a signal from up to 100 metres.
But the Proximity Marketing sector would do well to self regulate at this stage. Not only because the The Data Protection Commissioner will surely clamp down on the sector, but also because they will inevitably be thrown into the same sin bin as the text and fax spammers.
At least there are no ads on Menus or hymn sheets, well not for the moment anyway.
Jim – Prosperity.ie