Jason Kottke of Kottke.org refers to an article on the weblog, stating the obvious about potential future uses for Apple’s iPod, including advertising, and laments the continual creep of advertising into his life.
Great idea and pretty much inevitable, but the suggestion of it makes me want to hop on a plane to SF and strangle the responsible party. I see ads when I pee. I pay to watch ads at the movie theatre. Most television programming is filler for advertising (which explains why most of TV sucks). Many magazines are mostly advertising. MTV is 100% advertising. The Post-It Notes on my desk are from Barclay’s Capital. Clothing without prominent advertising printed on it is getting difficult to find. I am marketed to and advertised to everywhere I go. So now I’m supposed to sit through promotions — while draining my battery, BTW — each time I turn on my iPod?”
Jason does make a very valid point that advertising knows no limits. The current system of advertising is set up so that those of us in the business are mostly forced to do this sort of thing. So much so that we really begin to piss people off. At some point, everyone will just rebel and tune out.
Seth Godin has always talked about Permission Marketing in which the consumer gives permission to be marketed to but that model has not taken foot yet. It has not because there is no compelling reason for a consumer to actually want to be marketed to. Sure, there are a few advertisers out there who have the ability to be entertaining enough for consumers to opt in but mostly, advertising is crap. Until advertisers can hold an audience like a well crafted movie or at least have a compelling offer, permission marketing will not catch on and current mode of beating consumers over the head with a marketing sledgehammer will, unfortunately, continue.
