Tomorrow's Advertising, Today

Kevin Dugan at PR Blog writes about how ads are on every imaginable surface these days and ends with "It'll get worse before it gets better. How bad will it get? Here are five places I (don’t really) think we’ll see ads placed in the future." The five places are national monuments ("The Washington Monument sporting a condom ad"), X-ray ads, baby scales, toilet bowls, headstones, and The Bible. I'd say we are getting there:


Ads for Children's Tylenol in pediatricians' examination rooms.


A series of posts about deadvertising here on AdLab, including video tombstones.


Argentinians commemorate World AIDS Day. Just like the Washington Memorial.

I haven't seen any toilet bowl ads, but I remember nice bloody decals placed under bathroom stall doors (can't find it now). X-Ray ads are a wonderful idea and would work well for contextual ads and it's not too much of a stretch. Now that we have ads in PDFs, why can't we have an image-recognition software analyze your shot and recommend appropriate medication? Bible - no, but here's an interesting article about product placement in churches.