I've long marveled that advertisers haven't started plastering their pitches on the insides of bathroom stalls yet. Perhaps companies don't want to be associated with the act of elimination. But bathroom advertising is on the way, just not at the crapper, but at the sinks.
That'll be thanks to these VODXS (Visual On Demand Experience System) sinks, which sport a 7-inch LCD screen that starts playing when you wash your mitts. Rights holder Faucet Impressions Global is targeting "sports stadiums, casinos, airports, theaters, museums, bowling alleys, theme parks, universities, nightclubs and restaurants" as places that can "turn washrooms into revenue streams."
Here's the company's pitch:
Advertising on each faucet can be targeted to promote a wide variety of products, services and offerings to the patrons using the venue's washrooms in very demographic specific areas. Faucet Impressions proprietary software management solution allows ads to be controlled remotely and, unlike most other forms of advertising, can provide an accurate accounting of how many consumers see the ads.
I've not seen one of these in the wild yet, but apparently they've been installed at the MGM Grand in Vegas as well as at certain Sheratons, Flanagans, Hooters and Buffalo Wild Wings branches.
So, here's what you'll see when you go to wash your hands:
I want to hack into the video feed and swap in the entire length of Lord of the Rings. I want to see how long people will stand there and watch it.
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Comments
I'm ok with this if it actually increases the percentage of people who wash their hands after using the bathroom.
"I've long marveled that advertisers haven't started plastering their pitches on the insides of bathroom stalls yet."
Not sure which bathrooms the author has been in, but ads in bathrooms, in stalls and above urinals, are fairly common place in Europe.
The privacy of the bathroom does leave a lot of time/space for vandalism though, so it's not that cost-effective. Screens in the stalls would have to be replaced rather quickly, I'm afraid.
I encountered an LCD in a bathroom stall sometime in the last year, though I can't recall where it was. I just remember thinking "offensive but inevitable.."
Combine stupid priorities with unlimited resources and no carbon penalty and that's how you get an electronic water faucet. they aren't even trying to pretend like it's a better user experience. Great example of dark design.
By watching the ads longer, the user is likely wasting water. So the interests of the advertisers are directly in competition with the interests of the users of the local water supply.
We as designers can't keep designing in a carbon bubble like this.