Those hours you spend driving each day will soon be interrupted with contextual advertising, pointing you to that Starbucks around the corner or the McDonald's just down the street.
Imagine this: You're taking the family for a ride in your new Toyota, when you experience something unnerving. As you cruise past the local McDonald's, the car radio begins playing "Happy Birthday." There's more. The lyrics mention your son by name and, eerily, it happens to be his sixth birthday. At the end of the song, McDonald's offers him a free birthday meal, an offer which will expire in 30 minutes. A notion that was once the province of science fiction has become a reality, at least in Tokyo.
While the latest preoccupation of advertisers is to secure space on smartphones or Facebook, a quieter rush for real estate has begun in the media industry. It's a type of rush that's never been seen before; it's got nothing to do with your online environment, nor does it involve your cell phone. The new battleground is your car.
TV's lost its grip, with viewers declining and more using DVRs to skip over ads. Newspapers are searching for new revenue models. And as our demand for personal content grows, the space between the doors will become the battleground of the corporate titans. This should come as no surprise given the fact that the average American spends two to three hours a day in their car, making them a captive audience. And with more than 250 million registered passenger cars in the U.S. alone--and a couple of billion cars worldwide--the internal space of our motor car is about to be colonized.
The time is ripe for the next generation of Contextual Branding--the art of sending the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. Japan is unquestionably the leader in this form of advertising. I have a crystal clear memory of my first encounter with it. I was in Tokyo and using a Do-Co-Mo phone when I received a message: "Martin, you have a friend in the area. Would...
[Source: Fast Company]
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