Please!!! Somebody stop these desperate, addicted advertisers and the drug-dealing media companies that support the sickly habit of attention disruption by obnoxious intrusion. They’re destroying our free space! AdAge reports (noted via Peter Kim‘s linkblog) :
"Conveyor belts have never been on anybody’s radar screen for marketing," said Frank Cox, president-CEO of EnVision Marketing Group, a Little Rock, Ark., firm with a patented system to print digital, photo-quality ads directly on conveyor belts. "But a store with eight to 10 checkout lanes, well, you’re talking about 100 square feet of wasted ad real estate."
Cincinnati-based Kroger Stores is the first national retailer to open checkout lines to the ads in a test in a few dozen of its stores, mainly in northwest Arkansas; Jackson, Miss.; and Memphis, Tenn. Harps Food Stores, a 52-store grocery chain based in Springdale, Ark., is also testing the system in 13 stores.
It’s a tragedy of the commons. How far can the end be? To guys like Frank Cox: would you consider your face wasted real estate space, provided there probably is no ad there yet?
Trust me. Conveyor belts are not the answer.
How about if the stores put some public service messages on the belts instead? Would you think differently about them?
How about if the stores put some public service messages on the belts instead? Would you think differently about them?
Yes and no. Still brandalism, but with less greedy motivation.
Yes and no. Still brandalism, but with less greedy motivation.