The airport ads you can't miss

[spanone]

(CNN) -- An only-in-America tale for some future business-school textbook:

I was standing in a long security line at Midway International Airport in Chicago, waiting with hundreds of other travelers to go through the checkpoints. Things weren't moving especially swiftly.

Eventually I made it to the front, took off my shoes, grabbed a plastic bin and prepared to load my carry-on items into it.

I glanced down before dropping my shoes into the bin.

And saw, at the bottom of it, a colorful advertisement for an online merchant.

Maybe I'd taken note of the ads in the security-line bins before, maybe I hadn't. But on this day I made a point of looking at more of the plastic bins that were stacked up.

Yep.

Advertisements at the bottoms of all of them.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/16/greene.air.security.ads/index.html?hpt=C2

[Richard D]

1. I wonder at the effectiveness of these ads

I mean, people pissed off at the long lines, invasions of their privacy, etc. then seeing the ad? Seems like quite a negative impression of the company would be consciously or sub-consciously created.

[demodonkey]

2. The only one that would register positively with me is Amtrak...

...as long as they, too don't succumb to Security Theatre Fever.

I am very focused in TSA lines, I want to keep an eye on my stuff and get through. So any other ad I would either probably tune out or view very negatively.

PS -- Haven't flown since they installed the X-ray cancerboxes; will try not to have to unless necessary. With all that I know about how poorly the US Government regulated the testing of the electronic voting machines in place because of the Help America Vote Act, I am sure these body scanners are dangerously untested. Chertoff's profits have to come before public health and safety after all. :sarcasm:

[Buzz Clik]

5. Agreed. I would not want my product being touted to a bunch of pissed off travelers.

[walldude]

9. Bingo... a smart advertiser would not put ads in places

where people spend most of their time waiting in line to be pissed off. Not too bright.

[spanone]

10. a list of clients...

Sony, Microsoft, Zappos.com, Honda, Charles Schwab financial services, Skechers shoes and Amtrak.

[petronius]

6. I've been seeing them for years, but I haven't the faintest idea what any of them are for

Between keeping track of my property and worrying about the schedule, I doubt my brain has time to process a bland ad for Travelodge or whatever. And if it did, I think you're right that it would go into the negative folder: "You think this hassle for me is a money-making opportunity? Well, screw you!"

[Retrograde]

12. Same here

I vaguely remember something being advertised, but 5 minutes afterwards I couldn't tell you what. Hardly an effective approach to getting your product out there.

[treestar]

8. My take, too

When you see them in hotel elevators, same thing. There's a point where people are just going to be pissed off.

[Angry Dragon]

3. I have not flown since 2009

and did not notice them up to that point

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. I haven't flown since 1996.

And didn't notice them either.

[Sal Minella]

7. I haven't flown since 1979, and don't intend to start anytime soon.

There isn't anywhere I want to go badly enough to go through what one must go through now.

[Marblehead]

11. capitalism

at its finest :puke: