Virtual Advertising
Well, product placement has been around for a long time—original television shows were fully sponsored by certain products before commercials (as we kno(e)w them) existed. As you may be aware, however, is the phenomenon called Google Maps. Not only were you able to interact with maps, but you are able to plan trips, monitor traffic, and now you can even see 2D views of the city…. As if you are walking through town.
Once hardware technology is able to catch up, mainly PDAs, etc, we will be able to use Google Maps’ Street View feature to see exactly where we are by comparing images of buildings to our surroundings, rather than looking for a street sign and comparing it to a zoomed-out print out of a map.
What does this mean for advertisers? Instead of just putting up a billboard in, say Times Square, you will be able to pay Google to put up a virtual billboard on Google Maps. What does this mean for companies that own the physical real estate of the billboards?
June 5th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Very interesting point. The really exciting thing about these ‘virtual spaces’ is the ease of ad rotation. It might not be feasible to replace that Sean John billboard everyday in the real times square, but there’s nothing stopping that rotation in a virtual space. Theoretically, the ‘virtual billboards’ could even be animated.
Imagine, if you will, a printed ‘real’ billboard that offers a question in print that directs to the virtual doppelganger that answers the question with a short animation. Now THAT’s a dynamic ad.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Would Google have the right to sell ad space on these boards? I am sure that the board owners would cry foul.
What about indecent billboards? AdFreak has written about many examples of billboards being taken down (example here), what would this mean for offensive billboards (or even pharmaceutical or cigarette advertising). As it is, SecondLife has become a venue for these types of virtual advertisements (MediaPost’s Necessity, Not Luxury).