The Target

A little cynicism goes a long way.

          The lights came on, illuminating the man standing in center stage. He wore a fitted gray suit with a blue tie and brown leather dress shoes. His dark hair was long and slicked back. A neatly trimmed beard encompassed a dazzling white smile.

            There was no visible microphone, but his voice rang out loud and clear to the packed auditorium.

            “The age old question in advertising,” he said confidently, his voice smooth as silk, “is ‘How do we reach our target?’. In an age of paid, commercial free television subscriptions, TiVo, and ad blockers, that question is asked more and more every day.”

            He paused, letting the message sink in.

            “We tried to answer the question with sponsored content. Native advertising. Messages that could be confused with articles, that ad blockers couldn’t hide. But people caught on. It was only a matter of time. We then tried simply not loading content on sites, giving site users a message that they must turn off their ad blockers to continue. So people got their content from other sources.”

            He raised his arms, grimacing. “We’ve tried upping production value on commercials, in the hopes that they might be confused with scheduled programming. We’ve put advertising on the walls in sporting arenas. We have banner ads come up on the screen during football games. We’ve sponsored segments on talk shows. In our desperation to reach our target demographics, we’ve oversaturated content with advertising to the point of advertising exhaustion from our consumers.

            “People are hyper aware of advertising in a way we never imagined. We couldn’t have imagined. We can blame society for conditioning people to believe they deserve free content all we want. There is merit to that. But that doesn’t solve the core problem. Ads turn people away. We spend millions of dollars and hundreds of man hours to create quality work that increases sales for our clients, and in many cases, the result on our target demographics is the direct opposite.”

            He paused again, scanning the crowd. Then a smile slowly spread across his face.

            “Until now.”

…

            Damien locked up his bike at the bike rack. He was surprised to see no other bikes, given how nice of a day it was. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open to check the time. He had a text from Kelly.

            I don’t feel like cooking tonight, she said. Go out for dinner?

            Sure, he texted back. Where?

            She responded instantly. Don’t know. Italian?

            Works for me. Call you when I leave the office.

            K.

            Damien pocketed his cell and walked to the elevator. He scanned his employee card, and the touch screen activated.

Damien Willis

Bullseye Marketing

15^th Floor

Is this correct?

            Damien pressed yes, and punched in his passcode when prompted.

Thank you.

            The elevator arrived shortly after. The screen on the inside of the doors turned on and showed an ad for Lago di Vino, a steak house that had just opened downtown. Damien chuckled. What are the odds of that?

…

            Allen and Barbara stood under the awning of the theater, out of the pouring rain. The wind was blowing hard and constantly changing directions, so they were getting wet despite the shelter.

            “Why can’t we stand inside?” Barbara said, shivering.

            “The signal won’t reach from inside. The car stops moving as soon as the signal is interrupted.”

            “Please tell me you’ve called it.”

            Allen smiled. “As soon as we were out the door.”

            Unfortunately, so had everyone else. There was a line of cars pulling up to the sidewalk, their doors opening automatically to allow their owners in. Between the rain and the headlights, it was hard to determine if their sedan was even out of the parking garage yet.

            “There it is,” Allen said after nearly half an hour. The rain still hadn’t let up, and by now both his and Barbara’s clothes were half soaked.

            “I can’t believe this won’t work from inside a building,” Barbara grumbled as they climbed into the car. The doors shut and the car pulled out into the street.

            “It’s still new technology,” Allen said. “It’s going to have bugs.”

            “You can shut your garage door from a different country with an app.”

            “I’m sure it has something to do with security. Keeps your kids from accidentally starting the car or something.”

            “F**k security,” Barbara said. “I want to be dry.”

            Allen laughed. They rode in silence for a while. Allen loved riding in the city at night, especially in the rain. Everything was beautiful.

            Unexpectedly, the car took the wrong exit and drove into a tunnel.

            “Why are we going this way?” Barbara asked.

            Allen was as confused as she was. “Maybe there’s a wreck?”

            Halfway through the tunnel, the car stopped. The doors locked. The engine shut off.

            “What the hell?” Allen said. “Start.”  The car didn't respond. He tried to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

            “Did we break down?”

            “I have no idea.”

            Barbara turned to see if there were any cars behind them. There were none. But she saw someone  - a man, judging by build - walking to the car. He was wearing a hood, and the lights in the tunnel were dim, so she couldn’t see his face. His hands were in his pocket. “Allen,” she said, gripping his arm. “Someone’s walking toward us.”

            “He could be coming to see if we need help,” Allen said. His gut told him that wasn’t the case.

            When the man was fifty or so feet from the car, he moved his arms slightly, and his hoodie lifted up, revealing his midriff.

            Barbara sucked in breath. “Allen. He has a gun. Oh my god Allen he has a gun.”

            Allen’s stomach dropped. He frantically pulled his keys out of his pocket and pounded every button on the remote.

            “Start, god damn it!”

            Finally, the car came to life.

            “Move!”

            The car started moving. It picked up speed fairly quickly, and they were out of the tunnel within seconds. Allen’s heart was beating rapidly. He assumed Barbara’s was as well. After a few minutes of quiet, she said, “Can we turn on the radio?”

            Her voice was shaky.

            “Radio, on,” Allen said. He found his was, too.

            They caught the last two minutes of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song before there was an ad.

            “Don’t leave your personal safety up to chance,” the voiceover said. “Exercise your Second Amendment right. Visit Right to Bear today.”

…

            “I really think we should build a fence,” Debbie said. “I don’t like the idea of our kids playing so close to the street without any kind of barrier.”

            Mark shook his head, despite the conversation happening over the phone.

            “I’m telling you, it’s a waste of money. They play in the back yard, and we watch them if they’re in the front. You’re worrying too much.”

            He could hear the anxiety in her voice. “It really won’t cost that much. They have some cheap options here.”

            Mark’s real reason for not wanting a fence was that it would ruin his yard. But he couldn’t tell her that.

            “Babe. You’re overthinking this because it’s a new house. I promise you, it’s fine.”

            She pressed. “It makes me really uncomfortable.”

            Mark sighed. “Okay. We’ll talk about it when you get home. We don’t have to decide now.”

            She agreed, but didn’t sound happy about it. Mark hung up the phone. He looked out the window and watched Tyler and Jason throwing the Nerf ball in the front yard. He opened the window and called to them.

            “Guys, time to come in and get cleaned up. Your mom is almost home and dinner won’t take long.”

            Tyler had turned to look, but Jason was in mid-throw. The ball sailed over Tyler’s head and rolled into the street.

           “I’ll get it,” Tyler called. He started running toward the ball without looking. Mark screamed at him, and he stopped just short of the road. At that moment, a driverless car sped by, right next to the sidewalk. Tyler would have been directly in its path. 

            Before he could scold his son, Mark’s phone dinged. He looked down and tapped the unlock button.

When the phone lit up, there was an ad for a fence installation company on his screen. 

…

            The man in the suit neared the end of his presentation.

            “This new technology makes commercials and native content a thing of the past. Our clients will no longer be fighting for market share. They’re going to dictate it. Ladies and gentlemen, the future of advertising starts now.”

            His speech ended to thunderous applause. 

Reviews

[Shannon]

Creepy and eerily accurate. I like you writing style. The lecture at the beginning feels genuine and nit at all like a data dump, but a real presentation.

I might suggest you tell us a bit more about the network of technology this employs at the end. Maybe the the ap lets all conversationbe monitored, thst sort of thing, super computer sets up these circumstances.
Nicely penned.