| Kippreport.com

Oh no, now I need an eyeball transplant…

March 10, 2011 4:05 by Samuel Potter

I’m distrustful of technology. I have been ever since my Commodore Vic 20 stopped loading tapes properly, and I couldn’t get any further than level three on JetPack. Seriously, even though I landed on those platforms fine, it wouldn’t let me go to the next level! (Unless there was no next level…) Anyway, I remember meeting a friend of my Dad’s who told me he worked in computers. I said I’d never work in computers, as I simply couldn’t face staring at a screen all day.

A couple of decades later, here I am, spending roughly ten hours a day glued to a screen. How ironic. Despite this betrayal of everything I held true, ever since that Commodore I’ve viewed all different forms of digitization suspiciously, as if it might swoop in and steal my job at any moment. And, to be fair, in most jobs I’ve had, it has.

Well, now it’s invading advertising, big time. We just got a release at Kipp Towers (in reality a dilapidated shack just of Sheikh Zayed Road) promising that “The next twelve months will see a revolution in outdoor advertising, starting with adverts tailored to consumers’ mood, according to a report published by the Centre for Future Studies.”

Whoa whoa whoa. What? You mean advertising will read my mood and give me ads accordingly? So if I’m angry it’ll offer me a gun? Well maybe not, but the principle is correct.

In the Up Front and Personal Report, commissioned by 3M and GTG, 21 interviews were carried out with the world’s leading technologists, advertisers and media businesses. Presumably, researchers asked, “What mental stuff is coming our way?”

Well, as well as the mood related ads, 3D outdoor adverts that talk to mobile phones, adapt messages to certain situations, access social network profiles and combine holograms, mood lighting and smells, could all be on our streets by 2012. Being clever so and sos, the report’s authors have dubbed the new ads “Gladvertising.” I bet someone is really pleased with themselves for coming up with that.

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Tags: advertising future, contextual ads, future of outdoor advertising, gladvertising, gladverts, minority report, minority report advertising, multisensory ads, outdoor advertising, outdoor future