Advertising is a necessary and sometimes thankfully even entertaining evil we must all endure for the sake of maintaining this little consumer-driven society in which we find ourselves.
Sometimes the ads are actually more fun to watch than the show itself, though.
For example, like a lot of people, I mainly tune in to the Super Bowl every year for the awesome, big-budget commercials as well as the excuse to spend a whole day drinking beer and eating nachos on the couch in my sweat pants.
I know. "Thanks for that mental picture."
I also own a PVR (personal video recorder), though, so I can skip the boring and, dare I say it, "crappy" ads with ease.
But as much as that technology helps me weed out the used-car and mattress salesmen on the boob tube, other tech is working just as hard to serve me up ads in my Hotmail and Gmail accounts, on Facebook and everywhere advertisers think your eyes will happen upon it.
It's bad enough that ads are allowed in public bathrooms. I mean, nobody needs a bodily function that's sponsored by Caribbean Cruises or toothpaste.
But technology is only going to make it worse in the near future.
Right now tech-savvy companies have already begun using QR-Codes (similar to a product bar code) that enable people with smart phones to scan a part of a poster or ad and receive extras - such as a voucher - immediately to their cell phones.
It's a new level of interactive advertising that's making use of mobile technology, social networking and tons of data collection to really capture a target market.
But what if it worked the other way and the ad actually scanned you?
Well, that technology exists, too.
In Tokyo, an advertisement designed by technology company NEC can figure out your gender and guess your approximate age before serving an ad designed specifically for your demographic.
According to experts and tech watchers, the next step is advertising that uses emotion recognition software (ERS) to ascertain your mood, as well as information such as age, sex and interests, possibly gleaned from social networking profiles.
On Monday morning as you walk by the ad, it says, "Hey [insert name here], feeling tired? Why not stop by Starbucks for a cup of coffee?"
But on your way home the same billboard has an ad for beer, take-out food or a local pub.
I imagine this kind of advertising would cause a lot of self-esteem issues, though.
Think about walking by the device with a friend and it offers them ads for luxury cars and beach vacations, but when you pass, it serves up wart remover and frozen waffle ads.
It's both supremely cool and incredibly creepy that ads of the future will possibly be able to do these things and recognize us individually, using collected data to zero in on our needs of the moment to sell us something.
That means every February, I can look forward to billboards and ads proclaiming, "Steven Hill, isn't it time to buy sweat pants and nachos?"
And that's technology at work.
