So, will you need to download an application for this? Will you open a window in safari? I still don't even know how this will work. It seems like it will be a "neat-o" type thingy the first few times you show your wife and kids what you can do with your phone, then, oh well.
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CBS Outdoor to Allow iPhone Users to Interact With Digital Advertising Signs
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I think it has some cool possibilities. The final outcome with depend on how it is actually employed.
Imagine uploading and image of yourself then being able to put the clothes that are being advertised on the picture. Or going to a hardware store and uploading a picture of your house and pasting different paint samples on it to see what it might look like.
Just being able to walk up and move a pair of shoes around on the screen seems more like a novelty and will wear off quickly.
Imagine uploading and image of yourself then being able to put the clothes that are being advertised on the picture. Or going to a hardware store and uploading a picture of your house and pasting different paint samples on it to see what it might look like.
Just being able to walk up and move a pair of shoes around on the screen seems more like a novelty and will wear off quickly.
You're definitely not alone with this opinion, but these ads you see and hear in the grocery store are effectively subsidizing the products and services you buy. Perhaps there is a market for higher-priced groceries in a no-ads store. For such a short thread, quite a few excellent ideas utilizing this technology in different scenarios have been brought to light.
Personally, I'm not paying more for strawberries just to avoid some ads. What's truly disappointing to me is how broad they still are. I am interested in looking at an ad for a DDR3 sale. I couldn't care less about the local nail salon. Of course, the privacy/targeted-ads debate is an entirely different one.
On topic, I like the idea of these interactive ads. The shoe thing isn't intriguing in the least, but they do have the potential to be very helpful in a wide variety of retailers.
autrefois
macrumors 65816
I understand your point of view, but you're not going to convince me that Wal-Mart, Target, and the like need more advertising money to keep prices low. Wal-Mart's profits are up, they're bombarding people with more ads, and they're installing self-checkouts (which means reducing employees and/or hours). So I'm not going to buy into the argument that stores are doing it just to keep prices low; they're not going to lower prices if they put these machines up, just as I'm not aware of stores lowering prices once the in-store ads intensified in recent years. They're just putting up more ads to make more profit.
But back to the technology, as I said before I think it's a great idea and a great innovation. I just think there might be better uses for it than just another way of advertising.
Profits are exactly the game retailers are in. I'm not suggesting prices will fall with increased advertising. What we see is a slower increase in prices of the things you buy when supplemented with increased advertising revenue. Obviously, this cannot be proven as we don't have the benefit of seeing what would happen to prices without more ads.
The issue really lies with inflation. "Healthy" inflation is typically 2-4%, as the consensus seems to be 0% inflation causes a contracting economy. Some countries (generally in Europe) explicitly state their inflation goals - a policy current US FED Chairman Bernanke seemed to be in favor of in a 2003 speech (before he was chairman). While it's true economies of scale bring down the prices of highly automated products, many (most?) of the goods you'll find in Target and WalMart are generally created in environments that are much more labor-intensive than capital-intensive. Even the most exploited nations have marginal wage increases; couple this with ever-increasing materials costs and you have products that continuously cost retailers more to resell and yield lower profits.
Or at least this is why I'm choosing to believe ads are everywhere.
Doesn't it seem that advertising is usually one of the first industries to adopt new technologies?
Although the above may indicate otherwise, I'm in agreement with you. It'd be nice to not have as many ads. Truth be told, I think there are too many ads to be effective.
Ads are everywhere, so it's very hard for any one ad to compete for your attention. This seems like a rather expensive way to stand out from the bunch, but it might pay off by grabbing way more than it's share of our attention. Unless of course these ads becomes ubiquitous!
Just a few of them? My good doctor, Westfield OWNS every mall in San Diego, so I'm sure to see this thing pop up soon, probably in the more "upscale" popular malls first.
I used to have fun looking out for other iPhone users - back in the old days it felt like being in an odd little club, especially during the first month release. Now everyone around me has an iPhone, and it's amazing to see - I won't need an ad display board to find that out.
These advertisement are great in itself and can draw the attention of many people at one time but such technological advancement makes them more attractive and special.