Free Electric Van

I listened to Les Binet and Sarah Carter talking about their new book (one of those ones I wish I'd written) on a WARC seminar yesterday, and one point they reminded me of was: don't believe all those myths about traditional advertising being dead. Far from it - Facebook advertise in magazines, and both Apple and Google employ posters - yes, old-fashioned billboards - to communicate their wares.

Outdoor advertising still makes so much sense, especially if we really are going to be more and more concentrated into urban areas. And, this week, I also saw a new brand, a start-up in the area of electric mobility.

UZE Mobility, from Aachen are looking to smarten-up and relieve the strain and congestion in Germany's cities, via electro-power, AI, blockchain and all that modern stuff. Their flagship - or flagvan - offering is free of charge van-sharing. As well as running on electricity, the van runs on advertising revenue and data-dealing. The sides of the van are mobile billboards, which can even be bought as the van is in motion. In addition, data about road quality, traffic jams and so on, collected as the van drives around, will be sold to local authorities.

Perhaps the vans will soon be generating their own adverts, too. Also in the news this week was a commercial for the Lexus ES, written by AI:



I do wonder what the creative brief looked like.