Odds are you’re already carrying the one device that advertisers have been waiting for since the industry’s inception. Your cellphone, says BusinessWeek, will become a personalized billboard of sorts, with companies big and small texting you information about their products. What’s more, since many cellphones all have some sort of GPS capability built-in, advertisers will be able to pinpoint your exact location, then kindly suggest you visit the McDonald’s across the street or the Starbucks down the block. The future is looking bright for advertisers. In fact, it’s so bright they may want to wear shades.
Privacy advocates, sticks-in-the-mud that they are, are already crying Henny Penny, saying that targeting consumers in such a specified manner is unnecessarily intrusive. Given that companies aren’t exactly forthright when they want you to “opt-in” to their cellphone advertising schemes, they may have a point. In any event, here’s to a future of hyper-specific, cellphone-based advertising. Good luck tuning all of it out.
The Sell-Phone Revolution [BusinessWeek]