Where will the ad madness end?
Oh great, now a trip to Boston’s airport will include eying advertisements on everything from drinking fountains (that’s “bubblas” in Bostonese) to luggage carousels to seatbacks, clocks, and pedestrian bridges, according to this article from today’s Boston Globe.
Yup, the Massachusetts Port Authority is looking to sell sponsorships for just about everything it can—can’t you just envision “Gate 27, sponsored by Gatorade”? Part of the deal, says the article, is to sell sponsorships around citywide events like the upcoming Democratic National Convention: “…dozens of companies have expressed interest in sponsoring parts of the airport, either by paying to put up banners welcoming conventioneers or for the right to give away samples of their products,” says a representative of the company that is handling the sponsorship program for Massport in the Globe article.
Which leads me to a sponsorship opportunity I hope they really don’t catch onto. From an item in this week’s PromoExtra e-newsletter: “If you’re a marketer who is trying to capture a male audience is a way no one else has, urine luck. A company has developed an interactive urinal display designed to capture the attention of men when nature calls.” The company’s name, believe it or not, is Wizmark.
Do you suppose the day will come when sponsorships not just at airports, but also at shows, end up in the loo? OK, so your attendees probably don’t want urinals that talk back to them about an exhibitor’s product while they’re indisposed, but why not include sponsorship opps in the bathroom, some enterprising marketer is sure to think. After all, attendees may not visit an exhibitor’s booth, but everyone’s gotta go sometime.
As one of my wise colleagues said: Gack!
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