Digital “Landmarks”

I was on my daily walk to the tube station the other day, my regular trip through the back streets of Soho en route to Oxford Circus station. When I arrived at the station I found out it was closed…great!

A blessing disguise in many ways as I’m not getting much exercise at the moment, I decided to march to Piccadilly. When I got there I didn’t see anything unusual, tourists taking photos and people barging during rush hour.

It was the tourists which caught my interest as they were taking pictures of Piccadilly, a tourist landmark in its own right. When you look up you see the notorious advertising on the huge digital outdoor displays.

It got me thinking…brands splash out thousands of pounds in order to have their advertising in or near places which are considered landmarks, Samsung, Sanyo even the new Batman movie were all present.

More thinking…as advertising is becoming more virtual and digital do we have any true digital “landmarks”? Big brands always go for the expensive homepage takeovers on websites such as MSN or Yahoo.

I still think these are digital spaces that people visit out of necessity and therefore advertising on them may generate different levels of engagement. People are not always in a positive frame of mind when they visit these websites.

When people visit true Landmarks they are excited, interested and willing to absorb everything in close proximity.

So where is the best place to put your display advertising? IMHO if it is for mass branding and you look to seek maximum positive engagement try keeping in mind what I mentioned above…excited, interested and willing to absorb everything in close proximity.

I’m not really sure if we do have any true digital landmarks as of yet, places where people accept the advertising to be a part of the landscape.

Concepts such as Second life, Google lively/maps and in-game advertising provide advertisers the opportunity to advertise in virtual replicas of real landmarks, this is as close as it gets for the time being.

This is a true challenge for the creative bods out there, who or which agency can create a true digital “landmark”? An online space, which is such a marvel of design the average browser gladly absorbs advertising as part of the digital landscape which faces them.