Thursday, May 1, 2008

Leave my phone alone

Mobile advertising has got to be the dumbest idea our industry has ever come up with. Don’t they realize how annoying it would be to have ads pumped into our phones on a daily basis? Do they really think that texting us a coupon for 35¢ off a large Coke is going to make us forget that we had to pay for that ad? The day some company begins large-scale mobile advertising is the day people start clamoring for a Federal Do Not Text List.

Why does the advertising industry do this? It takes them forever to notice a new technology, and then they swoop in like a flock of loud, annoying birds. They ruined MySpace, they’re ruining Face Book, and look at what they did to Second Life. Remember Second Life? It was a strange little world where people could gamble and have weird text-sex with furries and goths. Then the adverstisers labeled it the “hot new thing,” and turned it into a mall. A bad mall.

Don’t they realize that wherever we go, we are uninvited guests? We are not entertainment. We are obstacles to the entertainment.

Fun Extra Credit Project: Convince your client that in order to reach the youth demo and increase their brand’s coolness factor they need to purchase a $125,000 island in Second Life.

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