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Hearing voices?

Matrix Marketers Seek Our Ears
Beam of sound aims its messages
By Jenn Abelson, Globe Staff | April 24, 2007

Advertisers have a new way ... to get into your head.

Marketers around the world are using innovative audio technology that sends sound in a narrow beam, just like light, making it possible to direct messages right into consumers' ears while they shop or sit in waiting rooms.

The audio spotlight device, created by Watertown firm Holosonic Research Labs Inc., has been used to hawk everything from cereals in supermarket aisles to glasses at doctor's offices. The messages are often quick and targeted -- and a little creepy to the uninitiated.

Court TV recently installed the audio spotlight in ceilings of bookstores to promote the network's new murder-mystery show. A voice, whispering, "Hey, you, can you hear me? Do you ever think about murder?" was beamed toward customers as they browsed the mystery section in several independent bookstores in New York.

For advertisers, the audio spotlight is a way of marketing to consumers, sending tailored messages without disturbing an entire store with loudspeaker announcements such as Kmart's iconic "Blue Light Special." The flat disk speakers with precision targeting have made sound possible in unlikely places -- from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to the New York Public Library -- and are increasingly attractive to merchants trying to "improve" the "shopping experience" with a peaceful environment.

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Major US companies, including Procter & Gamble Co. and Best Buy Co., are testing the device, but it is already being "embraced" abroad. Some marketers say it is only a matter of time before the technology takes off here.

"Advertisers look to capture people -- especially when they are in the buying mood," said Tim Bilgor , chief executive of Innovative Media Solutions in London, which has installed the audio spotlight in Istanbul and Madrid airports, in shopping malls in China, and in the showrooms of Fiat car dealerships, where messages about product features are beamed to consumers as they approach the cars.

"There's so many vision technologies it can be overwhelming," Bilgor said. "The audio spotlight can captivate people in new ways."

Unlike traditional speakers, which broadcast sound in every direction, sound from an audio spotlight speaker can be focused directly at one spot, so no one else can hear it, or projected against a surface so that sound appears to come from the surface itself.

For example, a box of Fruity Pebbles can advertise its nutritional content, heard by shoppers only as they walk by boxes in the cereal aisle. The audio spotlight uses ultrasound to stimulate the air into making sound, which is emitted in focused, laser-like beams.

Joseph Pompei , the 33-year-old chief executive of Holosonics, began his career in acoustics while working as an engineer at Bose Corp. in Framingham. But as the audio industry became fixated on spreading sound everywhere, Pompei wanted to focus on finding ways to direct sound. He left Bose and developed a prototype of the audio spotlight and started the company in 2000 when he was a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/04/24/the_marketers_have_your_ear/