Advertising; it’s everywhere. It’s an
inescapable part of everyday life and if you live in even the most modest
metropolitan area, you’re inundated by countless ads and most of the time
they’re completely inapplicable to your life. Like, why advertise a store
that’s sixteen blocks away? How about some local adverts, geniuses?! If I even
cared that Bloomingdales is having a sale, I sure can’t get there if it’s ten
miles south, because first of all I’m on foot and second of all the ad that
just informed me about it is on the side of the bus I need to catch to get
there! Well, the New York transit agency is hoping to give a booster-shot to the bus-side
adverts with the introduction of GPS linked digital ads.
Rather than your standard (and really,
quite dated) paper advertisements the New York transit agency is fitting buses
on a Manhattan route with digital screens capable of playing actual commercials
(because, drivers don’t have enough distracting them, they need to look over
and see a Girlicious promo playing alongside their car…). What’s more, the screens
will be connected to a GPS network, allowing the ads to change depending on the
location of the vehicle.
All stereotyping aside (I think the comment
was made that low-incoming housing units could be visited by army ads on
the sides of buses running up and down their streets; shameless, yes. Would I put it past the US Army? No.), this could actually
prove quite useful, if properly implemented. Informing pedestrians that they’re
right near a 7/11 or Starbucks might not only be useful marketing, it could be
down right helpful(!). What’s more, it may make the city as a whole more
navigable, with location-specific adverts for nearby tourism destinations.
Titan Worldwide has a sizable 2 year, $800
million contract with the NY transit agency, which hopes to see an expansion of
the digital screens to 200 buses by the first quarter of next year.
I think it is a terrible idea, I would actively avoid travelling on public transport that showed me so little respect by bombarding me with advertising in that way.
Advertising on public transportation is just a common thing. The only difference is that this one would be interactive and it changes its advertisement from time to time.
I think that this technology is great, but it is really pushing advertising to the 9th degree, and, perhaps, not in a good way. It’s not like we’re not already bombarded by constant advertising anyway.