Gas Station TV Gets Some Impressions and Respect?

According to an article in today's NYTimes, "The Incidental Video Screen Is Seen by More Viewers Than Prime Time" a new Nielsen report shows that away-from-home-video screens (like those at gas pumps, elevators, and health clubs) can generate more audience exposure than regular at-home TV viewing. So companies like Gas Station TV are stoked that they will now get some ad-dollar respect.

(Note: A careful reading of the article tells a slightly different story, measurement-wise, than its headline implies. What the article actually says about the number of impressions generated is:

“If you took the 10 networks that we measured and put a spot on each of the 10 for a month, “you’d draw more exposures than having a spot on every one of the top 20 programs in prime time” in a given week, said Paul Lindstrom, senior vice president of the Nielsen Company.

What the heck does that mean, measurement-wise?)

Myself, I find those gas pump video screens a visual and mental annoyance, as they try to suck me back into a passive media-fed state that I thought I left behind on the couch. But, who knows, maybe they'll start running The Daily Show?  --WTP (Image courtesy of Joe Thorn)

Comments

[coal seam gas australia]

I think that this TV for gas stations is not really helpful. It is good for a small time of distraction, but not really that helpful.

[Gordon Russell]

LETTER I SENT TO SHELL OIL COMPANY RE: GSTV. NO REPLY AS YET.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the misfortune of being assaulted by a host of Gas Station TV “features” at three different Shell Stations. The most recent interlude occurred near my Shenandoah Valley weekend retreat.

During this particular episode, I was driving a vehicle with a sensitive gas tank opening—so sensitive that I’m forced to listen to the gas as it’s pumped to keep track of its progress, flowing into the tank.

This is absolutely impossible to achieve with news of the latest global fiascos blasting from two speakers in every pump under the canopy.

Since there was no way to hear how well the gas was or was not making its way from the nozzle to the vehicle’s tank, I ended up wearing a goodly amount of it home. The stench was overpowering to the point that it burned my noise and lungs by the time I reached my cabin.

God help me if I had gotten behind one of the many smokers in this region who like to hurl discarded cigarette butts out the window.

Once home, I had to effectively scrub down the exterior AND the interior of the vehicle, trying to remove the smell. As for my clothes, it took two runs through the washer to flush the smell from the fabric.

I’m still trying to remove it from the rubber souls of my shoes.

Equally maddening is the amount of expensive petrol I accidently lost when the gas kept rolling out of the opening and onto the station’s concrete flooring because I couldn’t adequately monitor the flow rate.

It’s not enough that gas keeps rising to astronomical levels, literally from one day to the next. No, I have to have the whole messy and sordid affair exacerbated by effectively pouring streams of the liquid gold on the station’s floor.

By my rough calculation, I paid almost $40 dollars simply to send a toxic chemical down the town drainage system in into the Shenandoah River.

All because of the noisy, overbearing, obnoxious, and infuriating Shell pumps prostituted to the likes of Gas Station TV.

Hello Shell Corporate Leadership: It’s hard enough to afford driving these days with the exploding cost of fueling a vehicle. Having to sacrifice at least another $40, thanks to a “service” that’s NOT needed and probably not even desired by The Masses is just too much.

To that end, have you good folks, sitting around the board table, missed the massive proliferation of iPads, iPods, Blackberries, Smart Phones, and apps of every conceivable origin? Do you honestly think those who seem to have ear buds permanently affixed to their auditory canal give a rodent’s rear end about the “news” and Shell Company “updates” emanating from the pumps at any given station?

I seriously doubt it. I’d even be willing to bet the skyrocketing cost of a tank of premium on it.

No, the only saps forced to endure the auditory assault are the responsible party, trying to simply pump gas into his or her vehicle.

That would be mothers with small children, who need to watch the nozzle AND the two fighting twins in the back seat.

Or the gas customer who’s trying to keep track of the numerous vacation vehicles, including RVs the size of a big box store, that are whipping around the pumps, their drivers distracted by the loud “news” broadcasts and the team of victorious soccer stars, whooping it up in the rear.

Or the frenzied commuter, whose drive to and from work to pay for such luxuries as gas is made even more harried with the audiovisual assault, attacking him from the gas pumps.

Or people like me who, for whatever reason, have to pay special attention to the powerful, incendiary fluid coursing from the nozzle and into a temperamental gas tank, using the natural hearing device God gave us to do so.

All because some corporate brain trust decided noisy, distracting news reports and advertising come-ons needed to be blasted from gas tanks to a population already plugged into every conceivable portable electronic device imaginable.

It’s nothing short of a fiasco and a potentially dangerous one, at that.

Suffice to say, I am now going out of my way to avoid anything that remotely suggests a gas station with pumps that blast news and ads while I try to simply purchase of tank of pricy petrol.

Thankfully, there are still a few in my neck of the woods that haven’t discovered the intrusive innovation that is Gas Station TV. Surprise—none of them are Shell franchises.

Should it come to pass that GSTV becomes of fact of life for the motoring public, I really will give up driving.

After all, the rising cost of gas is forcing the American public in that direction anyway.

Before I add all this to numerous social networking sites and consumer-oriented comment pages on the Web, I thought I’d offer you a chance to reasonably, rationally, and intelligently explain why you feel assaulting gas customers with overbearing and distracting news and sports blasts makes good business sense.

I look forward to your expeditious and considered reply.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep hitting my gas-soaked shoes with Lysol

[GSTVSUX]

GSTV: SHUT THE F$CK UP! MY CHILD WAS CHOKING AND I COULDN'T HEAR HER!

Mere words cannot describe the vile, pernicious, thoughtless, hateful, racist, despicable blight to commerce that is GSTV. Only a complete a$$hole would force this babbling, insipid drek on customers, and I hope customers will respond to the risk to their safety and the safety of their passengers with threats, violence, spilled-gas fires, and hammers.