Tag Archives: Advertising

A shout out to my favorite advertising genre of all time: Ambient Media.

The dictionary defines ambient media as “place-based advertising that reaches prospects wherever they happen to be.” My ad-academy-understanding of ambient advertising is that it leverages items and structures that already exist in our everyday environment, and uses them to create unique and harmonious ads that are seamlessly integrated (when done right) into our everyday life.

A cross-over into the out-of-home advertising category, ambient advertising deviates from traditional billboards and bus shelter ads in that it’s not just a poster adhered to a surface. But rather, it utilizes the structure itself and works it into the advertisement. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever seen escalators morphed into razor blades, telephone wires converted into dental floss, or my personal favorite, a pedestrian crosswalk “painted” on by an over-sized bottle of whiteout.

Let’s be honest, no form of advertising is completely unobtrusive. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, ambient is about as passive as your advertising can get while being amazingly effective. It doesn’t aim to seek out consumers; consumers are automatically interacting with it as part of their everyday routine.

To put it into perspective, if television advertising was the Gilbert Gottfried esq. “Hey you, look at me, you can’t get away from this! [insert obnoxious laugh]”, then ambient advertising would be the cool, calm, black-frame-glasses-wearing Johnny Depp of the ad world saying, “Yea man, you can look if you want, but if you don’t…eh, your loss.” And it’s this more laid-back manner of “speaking” to people that is most likely why ambient advertising is more welcomed by the average consumer.

When done right, ambient media definitely rates high on the cool and effective scale. And compared to other ad mediums, it’s relatively low cost. You may need to spend a bit more time seeking out the necessary permits to advertising on nontraditional spaces, but it can be well worth the effort.

Check out some nice examples of ambient advertising:

-Alex Chartrand