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I often check MIT's Advertising Lab to see what those kooky scientists and marketers have come up with. Nano-advertising on bugs! Laser-etching on eggs! Forget in-game advertising - try in-sleep advertising!This dream brought to you by Chevy!

most of the ideas are still (thankfully) nascent. If there is a new technology on the horizon, there is a marketer thinking of ways to exploit it. There is literally almost no space (virtual or physical) that is still virgin marketing territory.

except our national parks. until now - possibly. the CS Monitor reports that our national parks and forests are the next potential target for marketers:

This week, officials at the National Park Service and the Department of Interior are reviewing a proposed rule change that governs corporate giving to national parks. The change, expected next month, would expand corporate recognition - only modestly, says a park service spokesman - for companies whose donations help bolster a park system struggling to fund a maintenance backlog of more than $4 billion. The public comment period for a similar rule change for national forests ended Monday.

hey, who wouldn't want to go camping next to the giant inflatable Bud bottle?

Comments

[marissagluck]

that would be too easy, no? but what's the fun in taxing corporations when they would much rather carve their logo into a giant redwood?

[aram sinnreich]

Call me crazy, but why not tax corporations -- or at least cut their subsidies a little bit -- and use the resulting funds to shore up our national parks?