Captive Marketing
Occasionally, a light bulb goes off in someone’s head, and a new marketing concept is born. One of the more recent “opportunistic” marketing methods is marketing to you when you have no choice.
Captive audiences are a powerful force in communication and marketing, offering a unique opportunity to convey a message to a receptive audience. However, the responsibility that comes with this power is significant. It’s essential to use this influence ethically, ensuring transparency, respect for privacy, and a commitment to diverse and informed perspectives. Recognizing the power of captive audiences can lead to more responsible and effective communication in a world where our attention is often limited and precious.
Imagine yourself in a very small metal room with 10 other people. The doors close, and you have no way of escaping this room for a minute or two. While locked in with these strangers, you are exposed to various commercials for different products appearing on a video screen right in front of you. The doors finally open, and you are allowed to leave.
Sounds like a nightmare (or Marketing Executive’s dream, perhaps)? Well, it’s reality; it’s your experience if you use an elevator in any one of a few hundred buildings across the United States.
Captivate Network has installed over 3,000 flat-panel video monitors in elevators across the country. Business professionals use these elevators every day, and while in that big metal box with nothing to do, a video screen flashes to life, and sales pitches fill the room. After all, what are they going to do? Haul up 60 flights of stairs? Likely not.
This mix of “marketing through necessity” isn’t restricted to affluent businesspeople inside office towers, however. The television network Comedy Central has placed over 500 advertisements in bar bathrooms to promote one of their new shows. Talk about a captive audience! When nature calls, advertisers listen.
Advertising above urinals might be a rare occurrence, but the trend of advertising and transportation is becoming more evident, and technology is playing an ever-increasing role. If you’ve ever been on a subway or seen a bus, you’ve no doubt seen a billboard as well. Cars are often plastered with graphics for any given local company or even a simple bumper sticker with a website. And now, in over 400 taxicabs in New York City, the passengers are treated to a video monitor as the meter runs and they are transported to their destination.
Does the concept of captive marketing frustrate you almost as much as sinking a little white golf ball into a tiny hole 400 yards away? Then you should avoid the nearly 25,000 golf carts across the United States outfitted with video monitors touting all sorts of products to help increase your frustration, mock your futility, ENHANCE your game.
So how do you escape all this advertising if you just can’t take it? Next time you’re golfing, just walk. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, or ride a bike instead of taking a cab.
And if you’re in a bar at 1:00 AM and you’ve got to go,
Well, they pretty much got you on that one!
If you need help with your advertising needs feel free to contact us at https://www.AllMarketingSolutions.ca