While in the shampoo aisle at the drugstore the other day, I was greeted by a very loud “Hello there!” that almost made me jump. After 
getting over my initial surprise, I turned round to find myself eye-to-eye with a smiling, blond woman on the screen of a small LCD ad player. As a consumer, I felt somewhat violated. Here I was running errands, silently going through a to-do list in my head, only to be interrupted — quite abruptly — by some ad/promo piece. Had I made the conscious decision to push or touch the screen, this interaction would have been fine, but it really irked me that playback had been triggered by motion sensors.
Taking a step back and looking at this situation from the perspective of a marketer, however, allows us to see that we have a growing problem that can’t be ignored. The captive audiences taken for granted in yesteryears are no longer all that captivated — at least not by our advertising. Take a look, for example, at how things play out on the subway these days. Most riders are too busy listening to music, playing mobile games, or burying their heads in e-book readers to notice our advertising.
Getting in their faces with a loud, obnoxious message is, obviously, not the answer. But we do have to come up with creative ways to gently put ourselves back into the consumer’s circle of vision if we want to stay top of mind. Wouldn’t you agree?
Photo credit: ephotography
