Ads Just Got More Invasive
27.05.07 @ 2:45 pm
My wife and I had to fill up our car with gas, (something I am beginning to loath more and more with each trip to the gas station) when we came across something new (at least for us) at the pump. It seems that at certain gas stations, dealing with the fact that we have to fill up our cars with toxic chemicals for ridiculous amounts of money will be the least of our worries. Yes, now we have to be subjected to advertising. Bad advertising.
These ads are not your basic billboard advertising. No, these are full video ads… With very loud sound. So unless you are willing to close your eyes and plug your ears while pumping your gas, you are going to be stuck getting pounded by some 30 second plea for you to spend your money on whatever the person on the screen is peddling. Gas just got that much more noxious.
I have spent quite a bit of time writing about my disdain for online advertising - feelings I equally share for ads offline. These gas station ads, however, take the cake. It take a lot of hutspah to force your patrons to view ads while they are spending money purchasing gas. Unbelievable.
This is just another example of how advertisers are so busy concentrating on attempting to profit on every possible aspect of the consumer, that they end up trampling on the user experience. Yes, user experience does exist outside of a website. Every person has a threshold for poor user experience - whether it is a web site or pumping gas. If that threshold is crossed, the individual will recoil and go elsewhere for a better experience. This particular individual’s threshold has officially been crossed - I will make it a point to go get gas anywhere but at that station. Permanently.
So if you did not have enough reasons to throw away your car, here is another one - and we all have Fuelcast to thank for it.
This is what we have to look forward to at our local gas stations…
…with mind-numbingly wretched content. Sigh…
ads, advertsing, billboard advertising, car, gas, gas station, individual, money, poor advertsing, recoil, threshold, user experience, video video ads
May 27th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
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Sadly enough I have noticed these horrible venues of advertising. Those damn machines scream at you while trying to fill up your car. I wish they had also installed a mute button to go along with this loud monstrosity. My advice is to bring a hammer next time you pull up to one of these pumps and give the machine what it deserves.
You literally cannot walk down the street without seeing advertisements EVERYWHERE. Unfortuneately this is the society we live in. The eye cannot not rest; even when looking at the ground you see a discarded Reeses candy wrapper advertising back at you. Something is always for sale and you, the consumer, have to know about it. Sometimes useful but annoying.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:01 am
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The only reason to stop that sort of thing is to complain to the station owner, then to their parent company, and switch your business to other chains.
Then write to them explaining why you’ve switched to them.
Course, it’s unlikely that people on a large scale would do this. Most people don’t mind advertising that much, will just go wherever has the cheapest price.
May 28th, 2007 at 11:01 am
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It could be worse … find yourself a copy of “The Subliminal Man”, by J.G. Ballard …
May 29th, 2007 at 3:13 am
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I’ve seen them recently at my local fuel station where a mate of mine works - it’s completely shameless. As if we’re not bombarded enough with advertising material.