Personalised advertising

“]

Cover of Minority Report [Blu-ray

I remember watching Minority Reportwhen it first came out (i.e. when you didn’t need to take out a mortgage to go to the cinema) and really enjoying their portrayal of future technology, in particular when the guy’s walking through the shopping centre.

The main character has had his eyes replaced with someone else’s, but the shopping centre advertising gadgets are scanning his eyes and are asking whether he’d be interested in buying more of whatever he bought before (I think it’s something like lingerie – always good for a laugh).

Advertising has taken a step towards this future over the last couple of years – Google shamelessly tracks all your internet activity, and gives you adverts based on complex algorithms – which websites you visit the most, what you’ve read today, what keywords are in your e-mails etc…this was no more obvious to me than today – I needed to book a hotel with work so was looking at the website of a recommended hotel, and ever since every advert has been for this specific hotel!

So is this useful, or is it encroaching into my personal space and using my personal information for profit? I don’t think I’m bothered…

Britney the illogical philosopher

It’s not often that Britney Spears is going to get quoted on this blog so let’s make the most of it. In her recent song one of the lines was ‘living in sin is the new thing’…actually, I think it’s written livin’ but I’ll let that drop for the moment.

What I’m thinking is the lack of any real thought behind not only this line, but the philosophy in society which this line speaks about. A lot of adverts and television programmes sell ‘sin’ as if it’s  a good thing – enjoy the tempting taste of Magnum’s Seven Deadly Sins…I don’t know if this has been used but you could imagine a chocolate advert using the tag line ‘it tastes so good it’s sinful’. There’s an attitude around that says that sin is bad, but it’s good.

My problem is that this is just so illogical! If you don’t believe in sin as a concept then don’t use it in your advertising campaign, but if you do at least make it make sense! Sin is a personal act of rebellion against God, so saying ‘let’s indulge in sinful pleasure’ literally means ‘let’s actively disobey the God who we acknowledge should be obeyed.’ The sentence makes no sense!

Now, I know that the advertising people aren’t thinking about the eternal consequences of sin and their need for repentance and faith in Christ’s substiutionary atoning sacrifice, but that’s not the point. If they’re going to use the concept of sin, they could at least use it in a logical way.