Sunday, August 20, 2006

Power of ?

I ride the metro to work and home every day. Several months ago, right before my stop on the way home, the driver announced that everyone should look out the window to see the new ads being tested in the metro. Sure enough, there on the tunnel wall was an ad for some car company. It was a very simple concept, the train goes fast enough to animate the ad, provided the designers set up stills to illustrate the movement. The ads are lit from behind to look like television, but they're much more low-tech.

A few weeks ago, the ad was switched to a Target ad. It is red and white and filled with cool objects and happy looking people and I could watch it over and over again. In fact, I do. It's amazing what a simple low-tech thing can do to a person's psyche. Even though I know it's advertising, every time I see it, I think "That's so cool." It's different than the rest of the black tunnels and it's just flashy enough to capture my imagination and make me think it's cool. How feeble and influencable human beings are. (I am).

Which makes me wonder, what could I do, to make a big impact on a lot of people. With just a small amount of ingenuity, perhaps I could spread a better message than "Shop at Target." I just need to figure out what it is I really want to say...