The Future of Guerilla Advertising: Watch Out

Do they have to keep picking on us? Wired published a story today about new wave advertising. The lead paragraph made mention of the January 31 boondoggle by the Boston Police

"These types of marketing tactics will not and should not be tolerated," vowed Boston Mayor Thomas Menino after the now-infamous blinking LED ads for the Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force were discovered on bridges and underpasses, leading to a bomb scare that shut down parts of the city.

Immediately labeled a prank, and later described as guerilla marketing, the ad campaign for ATHF has gotten a lot more play than it would have if there wasn't an overreaction. Menino even joked at the St. Patrick's day breakfast yesterday that some mayors complain about deficits, he held up one of the ATHF "bombs," and explained that it was followed by the giant $2 million check he held up. The $2 million was meant as a repayment of funds spent in reacting to the bomb scare and a settlement to keep charges from being filed against the corporate sponsors of the advertising.

The wired piece didn't focus on the dont's of new advertising – it was more of an overview of how traditional TV commercials and print ads will need to be augmented by other methods, taking advantage of new technologies, to be effective to capture the evolving consumer. A couple of cell-phone based technologies are referenced before they break out the big guns. HSS, or Hypersonic sound, is being used in OfficeMax stores to transmit "tightly focused directional sound beams that can only be heard by those standing directly in their path, an effect that some compare to hearing voices in their heads." Great, we're ditching the fake bombs for voices in our heads. But the focus on Massachusetts isn't left with the lite-brite, the piece wraps up with allusion to the iRobot Roombas and Scoobas, a company based here in the Commonwealth.

If one thing is clear, it's that no one really knows exactly what advertising will look like in 50 or even 20 years. "Part of my job is to study this stuff," says Vedrashko, "but it sometimes creates as many questions as it answers." As if to prove his point, he starts wondering aloud what might happen to advertising when smart robots begin handling mundane household tasks. "When robots start cleaning our homes, it's not unrealistic to assume they'll also be purchasing cleaning products," he says.

If your Roomba starts blinking or etching patterns of Mooninites in your floors beware, friends, beware.