Touch Me Buy Me

Advertisers have not hesitated to capitalize on the 'touching is believing' trend. I'm pretty sure we  are far from seeing the peak of this trend in action.

Some implementations I found creative....

Nokia touch screens in London bus stops. Why didn't advertisers think about this sooner? Bored people in bus stops = easily entertained by mundane game. Brilliant. Check it out on my video bar.

Touch screen window displays at retail outlets. These babies let you browse catalogues from the comfort of the front store display window? I'm still indecisive about this medium's added benefit... but definitely an attention grabber. There's professional services dedicated entirely to this thing. Check out http://www.advertisingtouchscreens.co.nz/home.html for an example.

On a slight tangent... not quite touching but definitely interactive;

A couple years ago a big Canadian phone company promoted its new LED camera phone by setting up a camera in Dundas Square which took pictures of passerbys only to display them on huge billboards moments later. (In the "Picture Yourself Here" campaign). Personally, I'd probably freak if I saw my picture billboard high --- and I'm wondering... how did they get people's consent? Did they even bother.. I see lawsuit potential!

Touching is Believing

So while this is no longer a revolutionary new thing , I find the new 'touch' phenomena pretty damn cool, so im gonna talk about it. 

It seems that everywhere you look ( although to be honest I have yet to see this trend in full motion ) things are becoming touchably interactive.

No surprise that touching is big, considering the relatively recent release of the iPod Touch and all the commotion it caused. What is it about electronic devices detecting and reacting to human heat (technology that has been around for ages) that has suddenly got everyone jumping out of their shoes and dropping hundreds of bucks for the joy of fidgeting? 

Does this new wave of technological devices symbolize technology becoming an even further integrated extension of the human self  as McLuhan predicted? Will people drift away from human contact as technology provides increasingly enhanced touch-based responses? 

I would definitely consider some of my friend's relationships with their iPod Touch's to be very emotionally bound (to the point of being a little creepy/ annoying some might say...)

Wow, there's so much to be said on the topic I haven't even got to the whole advertising connection yet! Guess I'll save that for the next post...