Virginia Cargill
SignStorey
183 Sherman Street
Fairfield, CT 06824
Dear Ms. Cargill:
I was not aware of your company until the recent news story about your affiliation with CBS. Like thousands (millions?) of others, however, I have been exposed to your product, the television screens that are sprouting up in major supermarkets. I was in Albertsons, which I generally avoid because it feels like walking into a city made of bags of cat litter and bottles of strangely-colored juice. Hovering above they conveyor belt at the check-out line there was a small screen showing various snippets of talking heads. I haven’t had a television in my home for quite a while now, so I was keenly aware of the zone-out that I fell into looking at the screen. It was a little frightening.
Your press release describes your product as providing companies access to "an increasingly difficult-to-reach target audience, in an environment where they are open to receiving information.” Because of my above mentioned aversion to large supermarkets, I am not sure I am your target audience, but I can tell you that I am difficult-to-reach on purpose! The only information I want to be receiving is the nutritional content of what I am purchasing, its price, and possibly which celebrity has a previously unknown love child who is now operating an international underage counterfeit alien cloning ring.
To this you might argue that the magazines at the checkout are equally visually invasive. I would not agree. The sound that accompanies the televised images makes it more difficult to ignore. Perhaps I am too resistant to change, but some of the elements that make an otherwise dull supermarket trip interesting are eavesdropping on the banter between the clerk and the woman in line ahead of you, and the awkward moment when you are absently perusing what the person behind you has in his cart and he tries to hide a case of Ding Dongs under a head of cabbage.
Too many people are plugged in and zoned out in their own homes. I think we should get a break and have a chance to look around when we’re out in the world.
Truly,
Liz Mann
