Wait Marketing and Contextual Advertising

A friend (thank you Anna!) sent me this very interesting article posted in the New-York Times.
It hightlights the fact that consumers are exposed to advertising everywhere: on bridges, in the subway and even on eggs!
Exposed to 5,000 messages a day, consumers start to complain and public institutions to react: some campaigns have been stopped.
Some ways of advertising have proved very successful like a Microsoft campaign on dining trays in planes or another on video screens in elevators.
The article concludes that advertisers try to find the right way to advertise. It is of course Wait Marketing!!!
While waiting in the plane or in an elevator, Wait Marketing is turning a boring waiting moment into an informative moment - provided the message is well targeted.

Diana Derval
Wait Marketing guru



New York Times
By LOUISE STORY
Published: January 15, 2007

"Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today. About half the 4,110 people surveyed last spring by Yankelovich said they thought marketing and advertising today was out of control.

Some ad agencies and the companies that hire them are taking heed, calling the placement of ads everywhere a waste of money.

“What all marketers are dealing with is an absolute sensory overload,” said Gretchen Hofmann, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Universal Orlando Resort. The landscape is “overly saturated” as companies press harder to make their products stand out, she said.

Outright advertising is just one contributing factor. The feeling of ubiquity may also be fueled by spam e-mail messages and the increasing use of name-brand items in TV shows and movies, a trend known as product placement. Plus, companies are finding new ways to offer free services to people who agree to view their ads, particularly on the Internet or on cellphones.

More is on the horizon. Old-fashioned billboards are being converted to digital screens, which are considered the next big thing. They allow advertisers to change messages frequently from remote computers, timing their pitches to sales events or the hour of the day. People can expect to see more of them not only along highways, but also in stores, gyms, doctors’ offices and on the sides of buildings, marketing executives say.

The trend may lead to more showdowns as civic pride is affronted. “They’re making our community look like Las Vegas,” said Barbara Thomason, president of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce, of the scores of digital signs she has noticed popping up in the last few years. “The word ‘trashy’ has been used.”

Some advertising executives say that as long as an advertisement is entertaining, people do not necessarily mind the intrusion — and may even welcome it.

In some office buildings, for instance, video screens in elevators provide news and information as well as ads. This year video screens will be placed in about 5,000 New York City taxicabs, where passengers will see both advertisements and NBC programs, according to Clear Channel Outdoor, which is installing the screens.

“If you do it the right way, you actually win points,” said John McNeil, executive creative director at McCann Worldgroup San Francisco. His agency designed ads for Microsoft that appeared on tray tables in US Airways planes last spring.

But advertisers are still trying to determine exactly what the right way is, and that has led to some intriguing experiments."