Monday, January 15, 2007

This NYT article on advertising made me think of Michael Crichton's Next, in which ad executives genetically modify sea turtles to display logos and engineer schools of fish to spell out brand names.

That, most people would agree, would be crossing the line. But what about the deluge of ads we face every day? Should anti-ad-activists fight ad pollution just as they do other environmental perils and annoyances?

It seems most consumers aren't bothered by the inundation of ads--we just learn to tune them out. For a while, advertising through novel media may attract attention, but people will eventually ignore these ads as they do the rest. The best strategy for advertisers, then, is to create ads that people enjoy, ads that people want to interact with and even share with their friends.