Banner Ads on Your Cell Phone

James Ensor writes, "I'm sure you'll all be just thrilled to hear that Ericsson has developed and is implementing a way to do targeted ads on Internet enabled cellphones. They envision TV-like FMV commercials in the future. I can hardly, umm, wait."

Comments

Re:We'll never even notice

[Mr. Slippery]

This sounds perfectly logical to me. You cant watch TV, surf a page drive down the street etc. without getting spammed. Why should cell phones be any different.

Did you ever stop to think that life might be nicer if you could watch TV, surf, drive down the street, etcetera, without being spammed?

We will just mentally tune the cell ads out just like we do on television. Hopefully lower prices will be the end result.

In the big picture, advertising does not lower prices.

Let's look at an example. Say you've got one of these cellphones with targeted advertising and discount net access. You're walking by the candy aisle of the supermarket when it lights up with an ad for M & Ms, which you happen to see.

Now, before you saw that ad, you didn't want M & Ms - if you did, they'd already be in your cart, right? You know that they'll help rot your teeth, raise your blood sugar, and add to that spare tire around your middle. But now you have been influenced by that ad, you figure the sweet, sweet taste of chocolate is worth it. The M & Ms go into the shopping cart.

("But I don't let ads influence me!" you cry. That's what they all say, chief, and yet advertising is effective. It's influencing somebody.)

Up at the cashier, you pay for your junk food. And included in the price is a markup that's part of the Mars corporations advertising budget - you just paid for part of your phone's net access.

But you'll be paying more, of course: at the dentist's office, to treat the cavity that you wouldn't have gotten if you hadn't bought those M & Ms -and you wouldn't have bought them without the ad on your cell phone.

Let's get it straight, my friends: 90 percent of advertising wants to influence you into making unhealthy and wasteful choices. It is your enemy.

Think I'm parnoid? Read a few issues of Adbusters to find out what really goes on in the world of advertising, then decide if exposing yourself to more ads is really a good idea.

Privacy . .

[Money__]

Imagine, if you will, you're driving down the street, and quitely, in the background, without your knowledge, your cell phone company runs a triagulation server that can find the location of every user on that tower within .2 seconds.
Imagine, if you will, as you drive past a grocery store, you recieve an instant e-coupon for $1.25 off a 6 pack of bud.
Upon recieving this little blipvert, you go into the store to pickup your 6 pack. Happy that you've saved 1.25 on the price, you open a can as you drive and phone a friend to tell him about this wonderfull deal.
Ericsson and any other company considering this, should think twice.
The problem with this technology, is that if the advertizement in the above example came from DoubleClick, they would have a complete track of who-what-where-when-and why

1) WHO I am from the cell phone billing information (linked together with older buying habbits).
2) WHAT I buy from the grocery store records.
3) WHERE I am at all times thanks to triagulating the cell phone signal.
4) WHEN I was driving to the store from the time/date stamp on the location log.
5) WHY I bought the beer from the "Eshilon style" key-word based logging of my conversation in order to give the advertiser feedback.

The problem with this is that it closes the "last mile" of the trust model.
I've got news for Ericson and anyone else considering squeezing a blipvert onto my pee-green-screen-underpowered static box you call a cell phone.

NO!
_________________________

Re:Great.

[Northern Hunter]

Not only that, but when you have your GPS enabled cellphone, they'll be able to track where you are, figure out what shops you are close to, and....

Oooh, the possibilities. Right now I'm thinking about 'Intelligent Agents' for both the advertising company, and the individual merchants. I can see the negotiation now:

ADSYSTEM534 : HELO SEARS284
SEARS284 : ACK ADSYSTEM534
ADSYSTEM534 : CUSTOMER 32ft x 270 degrees, 2mph
SEARS284 : ACK - LEATHERandFOOTWARE Quotient
ADSYSTEM534 : INCOME 65000, MARRIED, LEATHERandFOOTWEAR 83.6, last purchases: 8mo self, 6mo spouse, 2 and 3 mo children
SEARS284 : ACK BARGAIN
ADSYSTEM534 : 2.3 cents initial, comission 5 cents per 60 seconds linger
SEARS284 : ACK NEGATIVE, comission 3 cents per 60 seconds linger
ADSYSTEM534 : ACK STANDBY
ADSYSTEM534 : HELO EDDIEBAUER86
EDDIEBAUER86: ACK ADSYSETM534
...
.. etc


Well, as long as they can't tell what direction my head is turned...