Commercials have spread throughout the media, from television, radio, internet even to our roadways. Yet personal commercial devices have been limited to logo-emblazoned t-shirts and baseball caps. Why not be paid for contributing to one or many companies' successful ad campaigns. With a coat or shirt of some kind with an attached LCD screen a person could rent out time on their clothing in which an ad or logo would be displayed across their backs. A person with a moving commercial on their back is sure to attract more attention than a person with a simple print logo on their shirt. In order to produce the energy for this screen solar panels could be sewn into the shoulder pads, shock absorber generators could be implanted into boots and recent advances in backpack-generation technology (see www.popsci.com for more details) could be applied to generate relatively free electricity.
-- Twist, Nov 27 2005

Um. Redundant? Rent_20boy_27s_20shirt
Although admittedly I didn't add shock absorbers to it. [moomintroll, Nov 27 2005]

see link button for your links... http://www.popsci.com/popsci/
jutta thinks of everything [po, Nov 27 2005]

LED belt buckle http://www.icedoutgear.com/BB58.php
"Unzip, pull on handle, enjoy!" [sleeka, Nov 27 2005]

AtmosWear Interactive T-Shirt http://eric.schockm....fr/atmos/shirt.htm
You decide the downloadable daily message you wish to project. From the site: "If you equip the AtmosWear(tm) Interactive T-Shirt with the new AtmosWear(tm) wireless USB LAN-modem (see Technological Upgrades section), it automatically downloads the patterns or text lines you requested via the software interface, due to its ability to use unsecured wireless local area networks (LAN) in densely populated urban areas. Try using the Random mode to walk down the street and watch your shirt take on a new color and display a text message for you and anyone else to discover or display your SMS or MMS messages in real time as they arrive." [jurist, Nov 28 2005]

Chibi Vision Video Backpack http://www.engadget...y/1234000490025728/
DVD Backpacks like the Chibi Vision units described here would seem to have pre-empted this concept. [jurist, Nov 28 2005]

T-shirt TV http://www.t-shirttv.com/
Unlike jurist's link above, this isn't fiction. Looks like crap, though. [jutta, May 28 2006]

Bun for interesting priniciple.

Bone for putting more adverts in the world.

Bone for the fact that there is probably some 'entrepeneur' reading the halfbakery who will now steal this idea and make it, thereby damning the universe for eternity.

In other words, I think that this idea would be good if it didn't have adverts in.

Bone.

Sorry.
-- dbmag9, Nov 27 2005


See the issue for me is it's a slippery slope...initially it might draw attention, sure, but like all novel advert placement, once it caught on the city streets would be filled with 'em. Then the advert prices would fall to negligible. They might even switch to some sort of pay per actual confirmed view model and then the advert wearing people would get all aggressive and in your face about their adverts. I see many a street fight over these coats. :(

Agreed, neat idea without the paid adverts!
-- Zuzu, Nov 27 2005


welcome Twist!
-- po, Nov 27 2005


What [dbmag9] said, and what [po] said too. Welcome, I've let you off that bone.
-- wagster, Nov 27 2005


Why advertise on your back, when you can advertise near your crotch! <see link>
-- sleeka, Nov 27 2005


Earverts - been there, done it, no need for t shirts, but + if you are new to this - so am I.
-- xenzag, Nov 27 2005


I work in an advt. agency and we're constantly looking for "alternative media" like the one you are proposing, [twist]. Sadly, I can't think of a brand that would actually pay for this particular way of advertisement. Basically, for the reasons [zuzu] points out -everything, sooner or later, gets old and becomes unnoticeable - but also because this device sounds expensive and doesn't reach many people, so brands can always find a cheaper way to impact the same amount of potential buyers.
-- Pericles, Nov 28 2005


Aren't we progressing to a sort of "ad inflation"? Seeing as how I have a finite number of things I can view in a day, it follows that once you reach a certain point, I've hit "ad saturation" and nothing else you do will reach me... The price goes down. Is this going to be a sort of sine-wave-economics -thing-that- I-don't-know- about?
-- iamnafets, Nov 28 2005


Hi [Twist] - didn't mean to sound ungracious earlier. Welcome to the HB!
-- moomintroll, Nov 28 2005


Currently the only people I know who get paid to wear advertising are Sports stars, and carrying around all of the batteries,etc, required may impede sporting performance. I think that thay are the only people seen by enough consumers to make the cost justifiable. I already find the moving LED signs at the side of Football (soccer) pitches annoying, and although I like this idea, I think the amusment would wear thin quite quickly unless inventive humerous advertising is produced.
-- Minimal, Nov 28 2005


I've seen people wearing LCD screens hanging out in front of trade shows. It just looks wrong - by piling a fixed moving advertisement on a person, you're obscuring something alive with something mereley animated.
-- jutta, Nov 28 2005


With new OLED displays being purportedly flexible and printable and lower power than (backlit) LCDs, I would have thought that they would make a better display technology technology. I agree with [dbmag9] that this would be an awesome idea as long as it weren't used for advertising.
-- stestagg, Nov 28 2005


the problem with using OLEDs is that they are both fairly fragile, and have a really short lifetime. it's something on the order of a hundred hours. clothing with OLEDs on it would only be cool for the couple of weeks, and that's only if waching doesn't destroy it.
-- tcarson, May 28 2006



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