adzookie

April 7th, 2011 • Uncategorized

Adzookie, a company that provides free smartphone advertising to companies, has developed an interesting new way of advertising. When I saw the following picture from this article on AdFreak, lights were going off in my mind:

The reason why this article is interesting to me is because just hours ago in today’s COMM296 lecture, we had been discussing ads painted on school lockers. A school district in the U.S. accepted thousands of dollars to allow companies to place ads on 10% of the lockers in school. In this case, Adzookie is offering to pay people’s mortgage each month if they are willing to change their house into a billboard. AdFreak questions whether this is ethical or not. In my opinion, what Adzookie is doing is ethical, given that they are not violating municipal laws.

On the “Paint My House” page of Adzookie’s website, they invite people to fill out an application form. The choice to have their house painted is entirely up to the owner; in no way is Adzookie deceiving them or painting their houses without their permission. As well, on its website, Adzookie has clearly stated what the conditions of the agreement are. If the home owner decides to cancel the agreement, Adzookie will cease mortgage payments and repaint their house for them, free of charge. I believe that in this way, Adzookie has not engaged in any deception. In addition, this “Paint My House” program offered by Adzookie appears to cost home owners nothing; in fact, they receive benefits in the form of having their mortgaged paid off. The only costs to them are non-monetary: the lost of an aesthetically appealing home, and disapproval from neighbours. Thus, this “product” provides homeowners with a significant amount of value. And as Adzookie is behaving in an ethical manner, many homeowners should be willing to offer up their houses to be transformed into billboards.