Who would have thought that the local Shell gas station could support the local knowledge marketers?
Yesterday I was filling my car with gas, and above the pump was – yes – a TV monitor – all wired in to cyberspace giving me real time updates on local traffic, weather conditions and news. Of course there was also the ads cycling through – many of which had an easy to remember domain name for me to go to later.
Did I remember to visit this new domain-name-in-my-head? Nope. (I’ll pay more attention next time when I go back for episode two!) But it did strike me as a smart way to keep me engaged for the 4 minutes it took to fill the tank. 4 minutes is a long time in this A.D.D. world — a lot longer than the four seconds you have to engage someone’s attention when they visit your Web site home page. And also a lot longer than the average time QVC has viewers watching its shopping channel, which is just 8 seconds!
It got me thinking…
- Where else can we take advantage of a captive audience – and add value to them?
- If you engage someone with useful and relevant information they will stick around for more. (I’d like to know if Shell sells more gas this way.)
- It is tough to get someone to remember a domain name – unless they really need to.
- Is your elevator pitch ready?
- Maybe filling the gas tank should be just a quiet zen moment anyway – with no TV!