Ordinary Gweilo

The latest brilliant idea from the advertising industry…

I guess we all spend time every day waiting for a lift to arrive.  Well, now you can spend that time watching advertisements.  There is a company in Hong Kong installing LCD televisions in lift lobbies, and their slogan is

"Reaching business executives in a captive environment".

I guess that sounds better than "watched mainly by couriers and harassed office workers".  Or "nobody really watches at all".      

It’s all getting out of hand.  They have TVs on buses on minibuses and in KCR trains, and on the platforms of MTR stations, mostly pumping out adverts, though the Roashow thing on buses does also have some cheap programming (promotional puffs for new films, highlights of obsure English football matches from several seasons ago, idiotic competitions that require you to call a premium rate number, and other general rubbish). 

Periodically people (well, OK, let’s be honest, gweilos) write to the SCMP complaining about how disturbing they find the TVs on the buses because it prevents them sleeping or reading or shouting in to their mobile phones or whatever it is that they want to do, and declare that they really cannot travel by bus any more. 

Well, whilst some of it is entertaining in a bizarre kind of way, and watching some of the ‘miracle slimming’ ads can be kinda distracting, I really don’t have any problem reading whilst it’s on.  Actually, I’d have thought that anyone who lived in Hong Kong would need to develop this ability or else they’d go mad.  Or perhaps I already am mad.