Necessary evil or just plain necessary

Hypersonic sound - some would say a really creepy new tool for advertisers who are trying to brainwash everybody around them or a real cool use of technology in cutting edge marketing world. All it really is - is a narrow sound beam that you can only hear when you stumble right onto it's path.

So while walking on a street you can suddenly hear a pitch, be it for a new blockbuster movie opening this week-end or a reminder from the makers of sunblock that at this very moment you are being fried by the harmful UV's.

Except that, it sounds like voices inside your head and unless you've counted on some schizophrenic tendencies in your not so distant future you could be slightly rattled. I can only imagine all the panic that will follow from the sometimes paranoid, passionate about human rights, all kind of advertising is extreme evil types.

I personally think it's cool. Mainly because it is something new, different and not boring. That goes for the technology, the message can still be lame, if the advertisers use the same slogans that we are bombarded with from all the other mediums.

This brings me to the point of this post. Why is it that almost everybody in Estonia loves to hate advertising? Quite possibly it qualifies for the national pastime. Nobody ever mentions the quality of advertising. In my opinion that is a very one sided and narrow point of view that is shared by the majority for no good reason.

There are so many brilliant minds working in the advertising sector, that is absolutely impossible for them not to come up with ideas that would entertain and intrigue the rest of us. Unfortunately way too often it gets all messed up somewhere in the process and what we end up with is just plain offensive.

The reason for this could be that we the consumers are not trusted by the traditional marketers.
They trust us enough to make a purchase, but not enough to engage in a conversation about the purchase and thus they end up unloading a very one sided "buy-buy-buy-don't think" advertising campaigns.

But guess what, for whatever reason we don't consider ourselves idiots. I know, that's gotta be a huge shock for them just by looking at a lot of media advertising nowadays. Sometimes it seems that they don't even try anymore. Why bother, let's just do it the way it's been done before.

And that's where the problem with advertising lies. It's not that there's too much of it or that it's too intrusive. No. It's just that 99% of it is predictable and boring and that's why everybody loves to hate advertising.

So here's a clue, make us laugh or catch our attention by giving us a scare, an adrenalin rush or anything and the national pastime of advertising bashing will, if not disappear all together, at least see a serious drop in popularity. Everybody would come out as a winner - marketers, advertisers and consumers.

P.S. Speaking of new technologies full of potential. Check this out. http://springwise.com/weekly/2008-05-07.htm#virtualwall