Adverts are on the move

As a rail commuter, I see more than my fair share of advertising hoardings each day. My journey involves both overland and underground trains, and there are countless adverts at every station and on every train.

The clever marketing bods have started to use technology to their advantage, with LCD screens replacing posters in a bid to get their message to you as you ride on an escalator or walk towards your platform.

However, I couldn’t help but do a double-take at the huge ‘TV’ screen at Charing Cross station last week. This usually broadcasts a silent mix of Sky news and weather along with the adverts you’d expect. However, as I waited for inevitably late train, I noticed an advert on the screen which read as follows:

‘You can now have adverts sent free of charge to your mobile. Just enable Bluetooth on your handset.’

Wow, thanks! It’s so generous of you to offer it for free. I understand that adverts are a part of life when you’re using public transport, and I get the concept of advertising-supported media, which means I get something – usually content on a website – for free, but why on earth would I want to allow adverts to be beamed to my phone?

The marketing bods have clearly failed on this one. The technology may be clever, but the majority of adverts are of no interest to me, so I hardly want to view ads on my tiny mobile phone screen.

The really clever adverts – and the only ones I don’t particularly mind – are the context-sensitive ads that appear on websites such as Amazon. These are usually similar items to those you’ve already purchased, and are much more likely to be of interest. Google ads, too, can be relevant, and I often click on a Google ad if it’s directly related to the terms I was searching for.

However, there’s no way to do this via Bluetooth – the best I could hope to receive is a more generic half-price offer on a bacon sandwich and coffee as I walk through the station concourse. In fact, I might just turn my phone’s Bluetooth on to check…