Hunting the Elusive

Advertisements must work in ways which capture the attention of people. The normal 2-dimensional posters we find everywhere are so passe, most people barely glance at them unless the graphical design is outstanding. Same with people standing on the streets handing out brochures.

In Australia, recently there has been a trend towards the use of digital technology in advertising. Normal billboard "posters", but with electronic gadgetry added on. The first one I saw was for Absolut (Vodka?) at Eddy Avenue bus stop, which included three 3.5mm jacks to plug your headphone into for a listen of some music.

Then the Wildlife Park advertisement found at the Central Station exit to Railway Square had an infrared link which it was possible to connect your phone to. We tried it but the link failed, though in the meantime the connection point glowed pretty colours. I don't think anyone else actually tried it. Everyday Australians are pretty technologically uncurious.

And then recently, near Pitt St Mall, there was a poster for a mobile phone company boasting about their content, with a screen and a button which could be pressed to show various video advertisements. Again, I haven't seen anyone try it.

The trend here then is to use digital technology in order to prompt a kind of interactivity. Since Australia, unlike Japan does not have the QR Code technology, much less common usage of the Internet on the mobile phone, it cannot adopt Japan's system of having the QR Codes encoding a URL on their poster for people to take pictures of in order to go to their website or get special promotions. Therefore, Australian advertisers have to use the clunky methods detailed above.

[QR Code: Oh how we suffer in lacking thee]

But perhaps interactivity or noticeability in advertising should not be so "forced". Digital technology in advertising is useful, but why not try plain old creativity for a bit, instead of using technology just because it's 'high tech' or 'new'?

I therefore thank LK from IRC for this article link from PingMag, a pretty good online magazine on cool things (mostly from Japan). Though it is an old article (if you have seen it before, I apologise for boring you), I believe there is still quite a bit of applicability possible. Stickers on the floor are nothing new and most advertisers in Australia have caught on. But what about the rest?

I think the Take-away Goodies idea is a great one. Instead of hiring people to pester passers-by to take your brochures, dress them up in little attractive packets to look like freebies, and people will take them. Make sure you check out the link to the iPod Nano magnet campaign too.

Product sculptures are another good way to do something new. I noticed World Square Shopping Mall recently covered their columns with sculptures to make them look like piles of Christmas presents, so this is already done, although only in a decorative manner by shopping malls. To do this for advertising would be a new approach.

The page also detailed other places you could put advertisements. The handrails of the escalator seem like a good idea as well. It would be like a moving and looooong brochure!

Interactivity (or at least a sense of it) may be further added via use of 3-dimensional elements to the posters to make them stand out. Two-dimensional pictures leap out and become part of reality. It is indeed attention-grabbing.

The last idea -- Tunnel Movies, is a really great idea. I used to think (when I was a kid), why not decorate the surface of the road with frames of a movie, so that the kids could watch that stuff on long road trips? Of course that was just a childish fancy, but with train tunnel movies, this is a perfect application of that idea.