Free the Captive Ad Audience
With boarding passes becoming the latest billboard space, advertising just got more ubiquitous. Independently thinking marketers may want to consider the 180 degree option for “wow-ing” their customers: giving the captive ad audience a little white space, on them.
I wrote about this in my latest Huffpo piece. Here’s an excerpt:
So, it was with dread that I read of Delta’s plan (and several other airlines are in on this too) to run ads on their boarding passes. This is nowhere near as annoying as the incessant airport cable news, of course, but represents one more intrusion into personal space and into the quiet time that humans get so little of today.
As Anna Prior wrote in the Wall Street Journal (after quoting a Continental representative on how “delighted” customers will be with the boarding pass ads):
But some travelers — who already feel nickel-and-dimed by new airline fees — may be irked by seeing ads splashed on their boarding passes. Travelers already face a variety of come-ons during their flight. U.S. Airways, for example, sells advertising space on tray tables, while other airlines have experimented with ads on overhead bins and promotional messages on the ticket jackets handed to passengers when they check in at the airport.
What would happen if brands started to risk open space?
