Personalized Advertising on Digital Billboards
As I've mentioned before here in a number of previous posts, I have a love/hate relationship with advertising and marketing. On the one hand, I sell things. Advertising and marketing the things I sell helps me sell more of them. I'm also a bit of frugal person -- I don't like to throw my money away. Sometimes a company's advertising and marketing efforts help me save money. A lot of times, they try to do the opposite. In either case, I think consumers need to know what how advertisers and marketers try to influence not only their purchasing decisions, but a lot of other behaviours and attitudes as well. So I try to pay attention to what the advertisers and the marketers and the sellers are all up to.
One of the latest developments in the wonderful world of advertising and marketing is the MINI Motorboard.
MINI USA has put these billboards in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami, and has selected a number of MINI owners in each city and invited them to participate in the pilot project. Each person who agrees to participate sends MINI a bit of info about themselves, and in return they get a special key fob to put on their keyring. The key fob communicates the owners identity to the Motorboard as the car approaches, and the Motorboard displays a personal message customized for that particular driver, based on the information provided when they signed up.
I don't think it takes much to see that these messages could be used in all sorts of ways. Including, of course, customizing advertisements to individual people. In a way, that's cool. I like targeted advertising. That's one reason I joined PTR programs, and why I let some websites store cookies on my computer. Because if the ads are going to be there anyway, I'd prefer that they were ads for things I'm actually interested in. In another way, it's not cool. It's another weapon in an advertising and marketing arsenal that is used to achieve a single, all-important goal. To get my money.
As the NY Times points out in an article on digital billboards, these things are developing into huge money earners for the advertising companies, with profit margins around 70% (as opposed 45% for old-fashioned static billboards). And digital billboards mean advertisers have more choice -- instead of renting a billboard by the week or the month, they can buy spots on a digital billboard for a single day, or even just a few hours. Now they can not only pick the location, they can pick the number of times their ad will be shown in a day, they can choose particular times of the day, etc. And if we see more of the technology being used in this MINI campaign, they'll be able to choose to show their ads when particular people are driving by.
I love the idea and I hate it, too. I love it when I have some control over which ads I see. I hate it when companies try to make me their bitch.
One of the latest developments in the wonderful world of advertising and marketing is the MINI Motorboard.
MINI USA has put these billboards in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami, and has selected a number of MINI owners in each city and invited them to participate in the pilot project. Each person who agrees to participate sends MINI a bit of info about themselves, and in return they get a special key fob to put on their keyring. The key fob communicates the owners identity to the Motorboard as the car approaches, and the Motorboard displays a personal message customized for that particular driver, based on the information provided when they signed up.
I don't think it takes much to see that these messages could be used in all sorts of ways. Including, of course, customizing advertisements to individual people. In a way, that's cool. I like targeted advertising. That's one reason I joined PTR programs, and why I let some websites store cookies on my computer. Because if the ads are going to be there anyway, I'd prefer that they were ads for things I'm actually interested in. In another way, it's not cool. It's another weapon in an advertising and marketing arsenal that is used to achieve a single, all-important goal. To get my money.
As the NY Times points out in an article on digital billboards, these things are developing into huge money earners for the advertising companies, with profit margins around 70% (as opposed 45% for old-fashioned static billboards). And digital billboards mean advertisers have more choice -- instead of renting a billboard by the week or the month, they can buy spots on a digital billboard for a single day, or even just a few hours. Now they can not only pick the location, they can pick the number of times their ad will be shown in a day, they can choose particular times of the day, etc. And if we see more of the technology being used in this MINI campaign, they'll be able to choose to show their ads when particular people are driving by.
I love the idea and I hate it, too. I love it when I have some control over which ads I see. I hate it when companies try to make me their bitch.
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