Advertainment Part 2
* Links to product sites in every scene of DVD movies or computer games. Do you want the shoes in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game? Click-click-click and they're on their way to you via FedEx (note product placement for the big competitor to United Parcel Service).
* Broadcasts of infotainment and advertainment will pop up everywhere: in public restrooms, at the Starbucks, at traffic signals, at the gas pump, on your mailbox, in the packages you purchase, in the parcels that arrive at your door, etc.
* Captive broadcasts. Just as you can preview the music on packaged CDs (available in EU now, but coming soon to the USA), the product benefits, price points and warranty information will play as soon as you lift up a product in the store.
* Digitized logo placement in the rebroadcasts of syndicated TV shows ("Hey, we can sell the product placement another three times!")
* Branded ingredient lists on menus.
* Corporate artwork that takes you on a virtual tour of the company.
* Interactive ads, where you get to play Jerry Seinfeld and/or Superman (or the driver of the BMW) in a five-minute escape from reality (and from reality TV).
* Holographic projections of commercials from postage stamps, car and house keys, magazine covers and ad pages, etc.
And these are just the changes we'll be seeing in the next few years. We're not even discussing the opportunities for advertainment once we move beyond traditional broadcast methodology; when microchips are embedded under your skin, YOU will be the receiver for TV, radio, satellite, telephone, and global positioning system signals. And at that point, the possibilities for marketing communication via advertainment are going to become truly mind-boggling.
Are these prospects exciting, frightening, or both? My view is positive. After all, a lot of these new forms of communication are going to need my scripts and my music.
Scott G, president of G-Man Music & Radical Radio, is a creative director of the National Association of Record Industry Professionals (NARIP) and writes about music for MusicDish.com and the Immedia Wire Service. The G-Man's albums are released by Delvian Records and are on Apple's iTunes. He can be reached via www.gmanmusic.com.
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