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Corporate advertisers used to put their ads on
television, radio, in publications, and on billboards. But ads today are
everywhere, with corporations fighting each other to shove their promotions
in our face. Most Americans already encounter 5,000 ads a day, and the race
is on to cram more corporate messages into our eyes, ears, and minds. Says
one ad executive: “We never know where the consumer is going to be at
any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere. Ubiquity is
the new exclusivity.”
Indeed. Taxicabs have screens blaring at us, as do
elevators, bathroom stalls, and supermarket checkout lanes. Microsoft puts
ads on the tray tables of airplanes, Geico puts its brand on the turnstiles
of subways, Tylenol spreads ads on the pillows of doctors’ examining
tables, Continental Airlines advertises on Chinese takeout cartons, Rolex
has put ads in the plastic security bins that you have to use at airport
checkpoints, and — how’s this for ubiquity? — CBS is
stamping promotions for its TV shows on the shells of supermarket eggs. To escalate the cacophony, corporations are
projecting monster-sized ads for cars, cologne, banks, shoes, and whatnot
onto the sides of buildings in various cities. Even billboards no longer
just stand there. There are now digital screens that flash computerized
Technicolor messages at us, giving our highways and roads all the glitz of
the Las Vegas strip. As one city’s Chamber of Commerce president
complained, “The word ‘trashy’ has been used.”
For the final word on ad sprawl, a marketing official
at Perry Ellis clothing says: “We’re always looking for new
mediums and places that have not been used before — it’s an
effort to get over the clutter.”
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2007.
