The Wall Street Journal has a story about how advertising is showing up on refrigerator doors.
But not the doors in retail stores, where manufacturers would pay for the positioning. These ads are popping up on people’s refrigerators at home.
The Journal writes that Samsung has been “intermittently serving up ads” on some of its smart fridges sold in the US as part of a pilot program.
The response, according to the Journal: “Not warm.”
The story says that some of the ads are for things like Tide detergent, but some are for Apple TV’s sci-fi show “Pluribus.”
According to the Journal, “Samsung launched the banner-type fridge ads that come as part of the widget via an October software update. In a footnote of a news release at the time, Samsung pledged to ‘serve contextual or non-personal ads’ and respect data privacy. The banner ads can be turned off in settings.
“Samsung said the purpose of the pilot is to explore whether ads relevant to home chores can be useful to owners, and that overall pushback has been negligible.
“The ‘turn-off’ rate for the pilot ad program remains in the bottom single-digit range, it said … While owners can turn off the banner ads, doing so eliminates the widget altogether.”
Some more context from the Journal piece:
“Americans have learned to live with ads on smartphones and other devices as a necessary trade-off of connectivity. They’ve also gotten used to growing intrusions in the physical world, where everything from bathroom stalls to taxicab seats have become fair game for marketers. But the kitchen remained largely off-limits.
“The ads are only on certain Family Hub fridges that have screens and internet connectivity. They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom – part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar. Samsung declined to say how long the pilot might last or whether it would end. The firm recently unveiled a ‘Screens Everywhere’ initiative that also includes washers, dryers and ovens.”
KC’s View:
Screens everywhere? Sound like the fourth circle of hell. Which Dante, in “The Divine Comedy,” said was punishment for greed.
Which is exactly what these companies are guilty of, I think.
No pun intended, but advertisers – and the technology companies that are empowering/enabling them and collecting a fee for the service – have to chill out.
These days, we’re all being hit by advertising almost everywhere we turn. In some places, we expect it – in newspapers and magazines and on broadcast television, for example. But advertisers have decided that they’re going to put ads everywhere they can; their goal seems to be to assure that there is no white space anywhere.
I tend to think that this trend will feed back on itself – that companies will spend more and more money to reach a highly fragmented customer base, but the ROI will dwindle as people tune the advertising out.
This is another case in which retailers should serve as agents for the consumer, reducing friction while curating ads in a way that emphasizes relevance and resonance without abusing the privilege.
The post Consumers With Smart Fridges Gaze Into The Fourth Circle Of Hell appeared first on MNB.
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