Voice 1
Hello, I’m Liz Waid.
Voice 2
And I’m Ruby Jones. Welcome to Spotlight. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
It is another busy day in New York City. Large signs cover any free space on walls and buildings. These signs are adverts! The adverts tell people about the newest products and services on the market. Eat this! Drink that! Wear those! There is so much information for their eyes to look at! How can they decide what the best products are?
Voice 2
Imagine you are walking along the streets of New York. Suddenly, you hear a voice talking quietly in your ear… A woman whispers, “Who is that? Who is there? ... This is not your imagination.”
You jump with fear - who said that? Was it a real voice? Or was it just in your head? You look around. No one else seems to have heard the voice. You walk on, feeling a little worried.
Voice 1
On the streets of Manhattan, New York, this is what some people hear. It is not their imaginations. It is a real voice - a woman’s. It is soft and quiet - a whisper. And it, too, is an advert - an advert in sound. The method is called, “whispering marketing”. These days, companies have to fight hard to win new buyers for their products. So, in this battle, some companies are now targeting ears as well as eyes.
In Manhattan, the voice is advertising a new television programme. People walk by a large picture giving details of the programme. They may notice the picture - or they may not. They reach the target area in front of the picture. There, they cross the path of a sound wave. This sound wave comes from a loudspeaker that is fixed above the picture. A voice whispers in their ear. This gets people interested and they look up at the picture. If they are interested in what they read, they may watch the television programme. Bingo - the advertising has worked!
Voice 2
“Whispering marketing” makes use of a scientific method called Audio Spotlight Technology. Doctor Joseph Pompei invented the system. He explains more about it:
Voice 3
“The idea is this: usually sound fills a room. The usual loudspeakers on your music player make sound spread very quickly. This fills a room with sound. But now, you can put sound only where you want it. An audio spotlight speaker makes a very narrow line of sound. You can shine it like a light - a spotlight.”
Voice 1
So, how did Doctor Joe Pompei think of such an idea in the first place? When he left school, Joe worked as a loudspeaker engineer. Loudspeakers produce sound energy from electrical energy. That is how we can hear our radio, television or hi-fi. But Joe discovered one thing that he did not like about them:
Voice 3
“I was not happy that loudspeakers are not able to control where the sound goes.”
Voice 1
So Joe employed a different kind of sound wave - ultrasound. The human ear can hear a spread of frequencies from low [fx 300Hz] to high [fx 3kHz]. But ultrasound frequencies are higher still. They are too high for the human ear to hear. Joe’s invention mixes, or modulates, an ultrasound signal with normal sound signals. Then he uses an ultrasound loudspeaker to send this mix toward the person who is listening. Ultrasound waves are very directional, so the ultrasound energy stays in a narrow beam. But humans still cannot hear it.
Voice 2
However, as the ultrasound beam moves through the air, the air causes it to change. This change causes the normal sound that was mixed with the ultrasound to separate out, or “demodulate”. So then, people standing in the ultrasound beam can hear the original sound.
Voice 1
Joe Pompei’s audio spotlight beam is very narrow - half a metre wide. And the distance it can travel depends on how noisy the environment is. Joe Pompei explains:
Voice 3
“It is a bit like asking how far a hand-held light, a torch or flashlight, is going to shine. On a bright sunny day, you will only see a torch shine a few metres. But on a dark night the light will travel hundreds of metres. It is the same with the audio spotlight sound wave. If it is a quiet environment, you can certainly hear it for many hundreds of metres. But if it is a noisy environment then the sound will not travel so far.”
Voice 2
This audio technology is serving marketing companies well. But they were not the first people to use audio spotlight technology. Public buildings that contain works of art, or reading rooms - these were the first places to use Joe Pompei’s technology. Joe continues:
Voice 3
“We do a lot of work in the art industry. People ask for many separate sounds in one room. Or maybe they want to have sound in one area of the room - but the rest of the room needs to be quiet...”
Voice 1
It is easy to see many ways how audio spotlight technology can be helpful. But is whispering marketing one of these ways? Or is it just another method of persuading people to purchase products they do not want or need? Martin Raymond is the head of the Future Laboratory. This organization examines people’s purchasing behaviour. He believes that audio spotlight technology is just the beginning of new ways to target possible buyers. He said:
Voice 4
“We see five thousand [5000] pieces of advertising every day directed at us... We have too many things to fill our minds. So advertisers are trying to find the one thing that will hit us in a particular way... Advertising is going to become even more insane in the future!”
Voice 1
Other people have criticized the use of audio spotlights in advertising. They believe that using sound in this way invades people’s private space. But Joe Pompei disagrees. He says:
Voice 3
“A lot of people react negatively to audio spotlight technology. This is mainly because they do not understand it. People accuse audio advertising of invading their privacy. But what about a loudspeaker? It lets you trouble everybody all the time. An audio spotlight can help you place sound exactly where you want it. This avoids creating noise pollution everywhere else.”
Voice 2
So, will whispering marketing succeed? Time will tell. But just be sure to listen very carefully next time you go to the store - you never know who will whisper in your ear!
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