The increasingly ubiquitous nature of marketing is fascinating. It seems like ads, personalized content, and other marketing tools have managed to creep into every corner of civilized life. Advertising, itself, is both a curse and a blessing. On one hand it is easy to become annoyed and bothered by ads, but an individual can also learn about products and services that they are genuinely interested in. With the internet, marketers have the ability to build profiles for individuals and target specific messages to them. We see this all the time online. Products on Amazon, eBay, Facebook etc, are suggested to us based on past purchases, search history,or even our private messages on Facebook!
But how can marketers apply these techniques and target ads and promotions to individual people in the real world? Patrick Lin, a journalist for The Atlantic,wrote an article discussing the use of advertising in vehicles. He suggests that in the future, vehicles equipped with onboard computers and internet could theoretically see that you are driving by a particular business, and would then display a pop-up with an advertisement or coupon for the business. The system can use personal data about the driver that has already been collected to figure out what types of promotions would most likely interest you. This is pretty similar to technology we already have on the internet. Nothing too futuristic here.
But it’s the other part of Lin’s theory that is wildly futuristic. Automated robotic cars are inevitable. Google has been working on and test driving them on public streets with great success for several years. The marketing technique described above + robotic cars presents an eery possibility for marketers. Lin’s idea is that robotic cars in the future could not only display promotions on a dashboard computer, but could actually re-route the car and drive you near a particular business. This presents a cornucopia of legal and ethical dilemmas, but certainly doesn’t seem too farfetched to ever become real.
1. Gullo, Karen. "Facebook Sued Over Alleged Scanning of Private Messages." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 2 Jan. 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
2. Lin, Patrick. "What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
3. "Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan - Google Jobs." Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan - Google Jobs. Google, n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
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