URBAN JUNGLE

Brave new world where windows can talk

The real offence in contemporary advertising is given by the medium rather than the message. Many share the views about advertising expressed by that highly respected media pundit, Mick Jagger, who sang in 1965 about a man coming on his radio, who was “ telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination”.
Now, the John Lewis Group is proud to announce new whispering windows in its storefronts. Based on US naval technology, messages and music can be transmitted through plate-glass windows to passers-by on the street.
We are moving ever closer to the nightmare envisaged by Ray Bradbury half a century ago in his classic novel Fahrenheit 451. In one memorable scene the hero, Montag, stumbles from a subway train, unable to form a thought against the incessant jingle for Denham’s Dentifrice pounding in his ears from the train’s radio system. His is a world enslaved by a media which cannot be turned off.