By Paul Barnhart, Marketing Coordinator, Scala
If I’m not running to the kitchen or facilities during the commercial break, I’m usually checking my mail (but not checking facebook…I swear!) or looking up something on the internet. If I DVR’d the show, you can bet I’m skipping through the commercials. (JEOPARDY! is roughly 15 minutes sans interviews and commercials).
Advertisers have tried to keep pace with mobile society using pop up ads, website commercials and other strategies, but will that be enough as society grows in both population and the speed at which information travels? Digital signage has effectively managed advertisers as they expanded to creatively use space in elevators, taxicabs and even public bathroom stalls, but there’s got to be other places to go (no pun intended)…right?
After reading Next, Michael Crichton’s most recently published novel, I became intrigued with this out-of-the-box possibility for branding and utilization of space as advertisement: mother nature.
Crichton’s commentary alludes to aquatic life with company logos on their underbellies and plant-life serving as billboards. The novel’s theme of inter-species breeding is amazing as a standalone, but the few pages dedicated to companies engineering their own line of animals simply for the ad perks struck a deeper cord. Could digital signage really function in mother nature?
Imagine pulling in a trout on your fishing line and seeing the Microsoft logo on its fin or watching a group hunt on DISCOVERY where a FedEx lion pride pulls down a UPS bull elephant. Yes, imagine adjusting your digital signage advertising management program to include snakes and snails and puppy dog tails. Government lobbyists and activist groups would saturate news programs and talk shows, but the bottom line in all these debates would be…well, the bottom line.
If it’s not harming the animals or effecting the ecosystem, who’s to say that the digital signage industry couldn’t effectively make this new media a success? Do you think advertisers would be lined up for a chance to brand horses at the Kentucky Derby?
The possibilities would be limitless, and, at the same time, right up the alley of society’s and capitalism’s ego. Instead of finding the winning $1,000,000 soda cap, you literally go on a wild goose chase. The New York Yankees outbid GE for the Great White Shark contract. A dozen eggs advertise the latest animated show about chickens. Lily pads are branded with the Volkswagen logo. Conchs on the beach direct you to www.shell.com.
It’s all very thought provoking blah, blah, blah, but is it possible and what is the first step? I say that there won’t be the floating billboards like in the Jetsons, but clouds in the sky formatted to act as screens that can broadcast commercials on cross country flights. The airlines could use the extra revenue and digital signage could make the sky high advertising network a bit less complicated to manage. Who knows…in time it could turn the sky writers and planes that pull ad banners across beaches in the summer a novelty altogether.
I’d like to hear your comments, so, please…what animal/advertising combo would you enjoy seeing?