Imagine seeing this ...
The billboard of the future
Last week, I read an article about the impact that Google Glass might potentially have on advertising and it got me thinking about the picture above.
Google right now does not have plans for advertising on this device; however, this does not mean that the device cannot serve as a potential 'lens' to see ads through.
Here's a future I can imagine:
You're walking down a street and you see a billboard that looks like what's shown above. You may have on some Google Glass eyewear or else you simply take out your smartphone and whip out an app that can help you decode this billboard. The billboard can then be programmed to display a number of things:
1. An ad that is specifically targeted to you - Based on your search history or browsing history or +1s, Google may eventually understand you so well that it can serve you up a highly-targeted location-aware ad. The billboards will know what's around them. When and ad gets served, it can count as an impression so that marketers can keep track of conversion metrics too.
2. Something pre-configured by you - What if Google announced they were going to put these billboards out in the world and gave you the ability to pre-configure the content on them. You could log in to your Google+ account and set up some things that you would ideally like to see on those billboards and that way when you see them out in the wild, they may actually serve up some value to you. E.g. What if you selected a movie genre and said, I would like to see the latest movie trailer for this genre.
The possibilities are only limited by the geniuses that work at Google; therefore, they are practically endless.
A logical consumer will always choose to receive a message of value. This future will essentially make it easy and almost essential for marketers to deliver that value to consumers, exactly when they ask for it.
The day I see a blank billboard ... I'll be excited.
