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Could this kind of marketing be used in Shadowrun?

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Senko

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« on: <03-27-18/0225:36> »
I'm watching the red dwarf season 12 Mcorp episode where Mcorp employee's are blocked from seeing other brand name products. For instance you can see Mcorp lager but not leopard lager you can see a generic teakettle because Mcorp doesn't produce them and soon.

With some of the cyberware in shadowrun it got me wondering if a corp could pull this off and just censor other competitor products?

firebug

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« Reply #1 on: <03-27-18/0243:31> »
The technology to simply replace what someone can see may exist, but it's certainly not a commercial technology.  Most advertising in Shadowrun is AR, which already uses algorithms (like we have today) to market towards people, showing them what they think they'll want.  But it isn't neutrally based entirely on shopping habits, it's not for the benefit of the consumer.  Whomever is paying the most or has the most influence on that particular grid controls what gets seen, that's what a chunk of advertising money goes to.  Basically bribe money for the people who run other grids and hosts to show this corp's ads instead of anyone else's.  The matrix may be infinite but the number of ads you can see at once isn't.  It's the same with advertisements on web pages today.

It simply wouldn't be worth the money to develop technology to replace what someone sees when looking at physical advertisements, if they're also someone who top-of-the-line cybereyes.  It's too small a demographic when AR/Matrix advertising has been doing that for decades, but to a global audience.

It's not needed in corporate territory anyways.  Joe Wageslave lives on Ares property next to Ares restaurants run by Ares employees.  He wakes up and puts on his Ares clothes, eats his Ares breakfast, drives his Ares car to his Ares building to work, uses his Ares commlink to log on to the Ares grid so he can log in to his digital workstation in the Ares host.  He already only sees what Ares wants him to see--  Cybereyes or not.
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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #2 on: <03-27-18/0915:41> »
The technology exists to control what people see online already in our world. Beyond that, restricting access to information, wether that information is opposing prices, or the fact that certain government officials have been paid off, is a hallmark of dystopian futures.

brasso

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« Reply #3 on: <03-27-18/1754:33> »
The technology is very much there. Eg. Watching a football match on TV (soccer) the advertising boards around the pitch can be replaced with anything the broadcaster wants in real time, and can be different for each viewer (same as online tailored advertising). Now extend this to films (the can someone gets out of the fridge could be different for each person), or anything you like :) If the viewer watches the world thru a digital window such as cybereyes, then why not?
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The Dyslexic Won

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« Reply #4 on: <03-27-18/1840:33> »
also the grid could flag it so any time your AR 'sees' a non-Ares gun pop up a Ares gun ad.  can we say pop up hell?  ;)

Senko

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« Reply #5 on: <03-27-18/2322:48> »
Now THAT is an interesting concept rather than blocking other adds content you instead have add blocks. Real life adds are dull or childlike since the only people seeing them are going to be kids too young for AR, adults without it and unlikely to afford your products or mages. Meanwhile the real money is in renting space and letting the company buy the uncontested rights. So an add block (storefront, building facing, bus sign, etc) has a series of tags and when the right AR filter views it you get whatever it is has paid for that space. You could even run different content for different filters e.g. ar with corp id, ar without corp id, seasonal varients of the same building front, content linked to whatever movies are currently showing, special content for adults in certain light districts and so on.

For example a plain white tshirt with "Insert add here" tagging. Are's clients see Are's adds in their AR, Shiawase see shiawase adds, non-ar people see a white shirt, general populous (national sin) see whatever add paid the most for the "open slot"on the shirt, certain highly skilled programmers use it to pass mostly hidden messages to each other about their leet skills and technomancers get a splitting headache because they see it all at the same time. Could even be a source of amusement for hackers with programs to cycle through the different filters and see whatever takes their fancy at the time.