Where Do You Go, My Lovely?
They wanna know. Before you open that Dutch Umbrella, which is basically the PhillyCarShare of umbrellas that can be picked up at 8 different locations in case you find yourself ill-equipped on a stormy day, know that you’re being tracked. It turns out that protecting customers against the elements is not the main idea. Each umbrella is tagged and used as an experiment for mobile advertising.
Dutch Umbrella uses this information in a few different ways. First, it shows merchants that are paying $100 a month to have 100 umbrellas circulating their advertising messages that the umbrellas are getting used, and where their messages are being seen through various parts of the city. And because umbrellas are easily destroyed and sometimes go home with patrons, it also lets the company track which umbrellas are still in circulation.
Dutch Umbrella also creates printouts from the software showing where merchant’s mobile messages have traveled; data they can then use for marketing intelligence. A restaurateur may discover that umbrella-toting patrons who visited his restaurant often have come from or departed to places close to the city’s museums, signaling that’s a good area to target for other types of advertising and promotions.
That’s very dystopian-sounding. We are also in no way jealous that it’s somebody’s job to monitor the locations of umbrellas in Philadelphia. From the cafe to the bank to the drug run? Fascinated.
BusinessDailyNews: If Umbrellas Made Rihanna A Success, Think Of What They Could Do For Us
December 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Except that, since all you have to do is pick up an umbrella in one place and drop it off somewhere else, it’s only dystopian, big brother-ish for *the umbrella*.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
The shaft should light up like in Blade Runner. If it’s going to be a futuristic umbrella promoting logos everywhere, let’s go all the way.
It’s not like they don’t sell them already:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/9260/