Pump up the pitch

I happened to notice this item carrying the news that CBS has struck a deal with something called Gas Station TV, “to push programming streams to viewers at gas pumps.”

CBS will deliver a potpourri of breaking news and headlines from CBS News along with short takes from its entertainment programming to a captive audience of consumers while they fill their gas tanks.

Obviously, the payoff is that this programming will also be spiked with ads. I was dimly aware of the idea of television screens at gas tanks, but I’ve never experienced it that I can recall, and I wasn’t aware of this company, which claims that 30 million people a month see programming on its 5,000 gas station screens in 300 cities.

Curious, I found Gas Station TV’s site, where a press release quotes the company CEO saying: “We’re transforming the gas station into a true media destination for consumers, marketers and retailers alike.”

Elsewhere, the site explains the appeal to advertisers of this “media destination”: “GSTV reaches the consumer ‘off the couch’ and ready to take action.” It claims that advertisers can target a “demographic audience based on location and time of day,” and mentions that “your ad is integrated with content,” although that’s not really explained. Also mentioned in a promotional video on the site: it’s a “captive audience,” and there’s no TiVo factor here.

Three things:

First, I stand once again awestruck before the astonishing inventiveness that the profit motive inspires. I would not have imagined the gas pump as a captive-audience venue. And even if I had, I would not have believed that somebody would go to the trouble and expense to create a system to treat it that way.

Second, while assorted gurus continue to make a living peddling the idea that thanks to various technologies (such as TiVo) “interruption marketing” is dead, and in the future we’ll only be exposed to the sales pitches etc. that we the consumer find personally relevant, here, once more, is proof that this assertion is balderdash. What ad-avoiding technology has done is inspire previously unthinkable new forms of interruption, and that’s not going to stop. See point one above.

Third, while my instinct is to be annoyed at the idea of being pitched while pumping gas, I’m having trouble really backing that up. It’s not like a gas station is a public space, like park, or a sidewalk. It’s already a business, so I guess the owners of the business can do whatever they want, and I can choose to be there or move along. And it’s not like I view pumping gas as an enjoyable and relaxing respite from my busy day. It’s not a leisure activity, or a time for private reflection: It’s pumping gas. How outraged can I really be?