Brave new world where windows can talk; John Hatfield on all-

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Aug 17, 2003 | by John Hatfield

Advertising is addicted to the frisson of giving offence. Courting opprobrium with a controversial marketing campaign has become so normalised (FCUK anyone?) that we hardly notice it. And that's really depressing.

In the last few weeks, everything from Barr's Irn-Bru to Channel 4 has been scrutinised by the Advertising Standards Authority for offensive content. The problem for the would-be taboo-breaker is that there are precious few taboos left. Anyone who has seen the cubicle graffiti in a high school lavatory knows that even the most outrageous copywriter has nothing on the juvenile delinquent armed with a marker pen.

But the real offence in contemporary advertising is given by the medium rather than the message. Many share the views about advertising expressed by that highly respected media pundit, Mick Jagger, who sang in 1965 about a man coming on his radio, who was "telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination".

There are some fantastic adverts around just now - witty, surreal, moving - which can make you smile or shake your head in wonder or astonishment. Truly a good advert, from the most inspired Guinness commercial to the strangely compelling twin athletes of 118-118, is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

But as we become ever more media-savvy, a kind of consumer arms race is taking place as marketeers escalate their arsenal of devices for getting the message across. No part of the public realm is considered a no-go zone for so-called ambient advertising. Aircraft gangways are sponsored by HSBC while the first class seats on the Heathrow Express are emblazoned with Royal Bank of Scotland logos.

The hackney's traditional black bodywork has given way to corporate artwork, while passengers who take a trip in a Renfrewshire Council airport taxi are now subjected to video adverts transmitted from a fice-inch screen on the back of the driver's seat.

Replica football shirts have turned fans into sandwich board men for beer and cars. Even the night sky is the subject of a custody battle between those who think it should feature ursa major and the plough and those who see it as the mother of all hoardings.

So we're getting used to every free surface being used as a billboard, but now the trend has taken an even more insidious turn. Last week the Portman Group revealed that it was launching a talking posters campaign in pub toilets across the country, aimed at discouraging excessive drinking. Never mind the aim, these preachy, nanny-state ads have invaded one of the last few private spaces available in a frenetic, wired world. At least they provide an alternative to Washroom Media Network (you heard right) which has just installed 150,000 hand driers with digital screens in public toilets across the UK. It doesn't even stop there. John Lewis Group is proud to announce new whispering windows in its storefronts. Based on US naval technology, messages and music can be transmitted through plate-glass windows to passers-by on the street.

We are moving ever closer to the nightmare envisaged by Ray Bradbury half a century ago in his classic novel Fahrenheit 451. In one memorable scene the hero, Montag, stumbles from a subway train, unable to form a thought against the incessant jingle for Denham's Dentifrice pounding in his ears from the train's radio system. His is a world enslaved by a media which cannot be turned off. A world of 200' billboards and wall-sized TV screens showing interactive soap operas where the populace have miniature headsets plugged into their ears 24 hours a day providing a relentless stream of info-tainment, advertising and music.

But hey, whispering windows and talking posters are nothing to worry about. They're just the next stage in creating our consumer utopia. No need to take offence.