Monday, July 28, 2008

Direct advertising... the future is starchy.

July 28, 2008 - Milk. It does a body good. Got Milk? Where's your mustache? Milk your diet. Three a day. Got Chocolate Milk? (Today is Chocolate Milk Day.)I'm sure that milk ads have far outstripped cigarettes, liquor and even beer ads for being some of the most pervasive and long running ads in history. For as long as I can remember, I was more likely to watch the ads on TV, and reading Voque is really nothing more than a hundreds page ad. Ads catch my attention. They speak to me. Perhaps that speaks more to the quality of the programs wrapped around the commercial breaks.

There are a handful of really good programs on TV - but the commercials can be really brilliant. Remember the Sanka soap opera? How about the old lady looking for a bit of meat in her hamburger or the one that wiped out and couldn't get back on her feet? This is good stuff. The Kokanee Ranger's life in jeopardy, but his fate won't be revealed until the fall. How about product placement in movies? The new Mini in the Italian Job? That was one looooooong commercial for a small car. On the Internet, you can have your ads delivered to you based on what you are viewing online, what you've searched for in a search engine, or on key words in your emails. As advertising gets more prolific, and invasive, we will one day be able to have commercials fed to us direct to eye lid as you walk past a store or shopping district. How about the ads that come to our cell phones? There is a company here in Vancouver that has worked on a device that will beam ad texts to your phone as you walk by. Can the eyelids really be that far behind?

Remember singing telegrams? If there was a way to deliver these to your door cheaply, you can bet you'd be getting a knock on your door. Especially today on Singing Telegram Day. As we celebrate the anniversary of the singing telegram, be careful to whom you open your door. You could be accosted by a giant singing potato with a milk mustache begging you in song to drink Chocolate Milk.

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