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Posts Tagged ‘billboards’

Santos’ monkeys have already demonstrated that they understand the concept of money, and behave similarly to humans when making economic decisions. The monkeys will have a choice between two brands of the same food (perhaps two different colors of Jell-o), one of which will be advertised by a billboard outside their enclosure.

But there will be no fancy slogans or slick pop culture references here, which would be lost on the monkeys anyway. This experiment gets down to what advertising is really all about: sex and power. One version of the billboard shows a female monkey’s exposed genitals next to the brand logo, and the other shows the alpha male capuchin next to the logo.

The experiment kicks off sometime in the next few weeks, so it remains to be seen if the advertisement will affect the monkeys’ preferences.

[New Scientist]

The billboards they are developing rely on the RFID chips that are increasingly being built into credit cards and cell phones as a means of storing data that is accessible by contact-free sensors (like the "touch pay" feature on some credit and debit cards that doesn't require the user to swipe). A sensor on the billboard picks up on that RFID signal as the cardholder passes by, tapping information like name, age, gender, shopping habits, and personal preferences.

From there, the billboard could display an ad that is customized particularly for that person, ostensibly even calling his or her attention to it by name. It's all very Minority Report (remember when Tom Cruise passes that billboard that shouts, "John Anderton. You could use a Guinness right about now"?), but it will likely draw the ire of privacy groups who will view it as an unsolicited extraction of personal data.

Because it is. But IBM and advertising groups view it as a way to make advertising more relevant to the user, thus making consumers' lives easier and more efficient as they would no longer be bombarded by advertising that doesn't apply to them.

[Telegraph]