Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Hat tip to Andrea Learned for writing about a crazy idea - white and (quiet) space in places like ads and airports. She references a WSJ article in which Continental talks about how “delighted” passengers will be to see ads on their electronic boarding passes. (They, along with Delta and others, are now selling ad space on boarding passes.)

Now, I can kind of accept things like restaurant and show ads; that might be at least semi-helpful, although a long stretch from delightful. (And I’ll still ask the locals for their recommendations). It’s not like the boarding pass is going to talk to me (Please God, not yet….but we’ve got talking greeting cards…).

So, not the greatest idea but basically harmless. But then I take a gander at the sample:

Great. The airlines are going to be draining my color printer so they can pitch something I may or may not want to read. And, just how long is that boarding pass going to be now, anyway? Any bets that many people will throw out the pages they don’t absolutely need? (I already do. Often, I simply grab the actual boarding pass portion and just print that.)

Supposedly we’ll be able to click a box to NOT print the ads, but one wonders how easy it’ll be to find that box? My bet - not very.

Yet another example of “everything you do is marketing.” It’s the “little things” (Like wasting people’s time, paper and printer ink) that’ll kill you.

And there’s this:

“Gordon Whitten, Sojern’s (the ad agency) chief executive, estimated that about 40% of U.S. airline passengers check in online. ‘Here are 250 million billboards per year that were sitting there … with nothing on them,” Mr. Whitten said of the boarding passes that passengers now routinely print at home or in the office.’”

Well, by all means, let’s fill every available bit of empty space everywhere! That’ll really make your message stand out.

Then for good measure, there’s the “branding” spin: “The ads offer local advertisers a big audience of customers headed their way. ‘You are hitting them as early as possible, when it’s easier to get their attention,’ said North American Cirque du Soleil spokesman Shawn Rorick. “This is to help build brand awareness before they arrive.’”

Right. “Hitting” people as often as you can. Great marketing.

I’m with Andrea - give me a little space and quiet.

P.S. Isn’t it interesting how advertising agencies always think advertising (anywhere, everywhere, all the time) is a great idea…;-)

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, advertising, airlines