In the meantime, marketers are rushing to develop things like "MicroPOP Tags" - video screens the size of postage stamps that fit onto the grocery shelf under, say, the canned peas. With MicroPOP screens, made by a company called Solaris Labs, you could see a gorgeous model caressing Brand X peas where you'd normally just see the price.Gah. I seriously hope this doesn't catch on. The article states that this was tried out at a large German supermarket chain but that people protested so much that they were forced to get rid of it.
After all, says Solaris co-founder David McKie, doesn't it make sense to run an ad right where the shopper can buy the product? His miniscreens - actually light-emitting diodes - also can be affixed to clerks' name tags, so the clerks walk around with commercials featuring pea-sotted sexpots on their aprons. Oy.
Alas, these screens are just the tip of the ad-berg. At an expo of in-store marketing marvels at the Javits Center last week, you could also find what looked like a display of normal shoes. But pick up a Michael Vick sneaker and suddenly Vick sneakers appeared on the screen in front of you. Pick up a different sneak and its ad appeared, thanks to tiny chips embedded in each shoe.
All this will do is create more cluttler and less effectiveness of advertising. Filling every second of consumer's lives with ads is not going to get the message through to them any better than well crafted, intelligently targeting ads.
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