New technologies and advances in computer programming have found their way into the ever-advancing advertising sector. Companies have begun to use interactive billboards in large cities like London and New York. These advertisements attract attention. They involve the viewer and their surroundings in an unprecedented manner. Most of the time, however, they do not use a direct appeal to the viewer on the basis of a product's merits. They are representative of a trend in advertising to appeal to consumers so that the consumer does not feel like the advertisement is an advertisement.
These billboards are higher-concept than the "High Concept" ads of the last decade. Those billboards and commercials sought to imbue a product or brand with certain abstract ideas, so that the consumer might begin to associate a brand with certain emotions or ideas that they (hopefully) find appealing. Intangible marketing has now actually surpassed tangible marketing in frequency, with the possible exception for advertisements for law firms.
Now, however, not only are companies using predominantly High-Concept advertising, but they have gone farther to use interactive advertising. These advertisements are farther from the actual product than their predecessors. They seek simply to bring the brand, whether it is British Airways or Lynx body spray, closer to the consumer, to allow the consumer to interact and identify with the ideas associated with the product. In some cases, like the angel-falling-from-a-billboard example or the domestic-abuse-PSA example, the interactive aspects of the advertisements build on the High-Concept principals used exclusively before. In others, however, like the kid-pointing-to-and-identifying-flights example, simply seek to connect with the viewer on a more intimate level.
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