A couple of days ago I was exiting the Dubai Mall metro station, when something interesting caught my eye. There were 2 gentlemen standing a few feet away from the entrance with billboards strapped on their back. I vaguely remember the billboard being something about a cellphone data plan of some kind but I was more intrigued since this was something I hadn’t seen here in Dubai yet.

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I have seen similar concepts in the United States where you have people on street corners flipping boards usually saying something like “XYZ Apartments. 2 months rent free” or something similar. But those are plain board and the appeal is the people, flipping and turning it around for a level of showmanship. Here in Dubai, however, it was just these gentlemen standing around, no acrobatics – just a lighted billboard backpack.

Imagine if this could be miniaturized further. Imagine laptop bags and school bags all bearing some sort of advertisements. In the age of flexible displays I don’t see this being a problem at all. Shall we give it 3 years? People should be able to advertise their favorite brands. For example, I should be allowed to sign up with Apple to be able to advertise their products and logo on my bag/clothing. By making the sign-up process voluntary, you tend to get people who really care about your product as advertisers. Of course, there has to be some sort of benefits for me advertising – perhaps monetary compensation, or credits towards buying the next Apple product. The only question then becomes how do we gauge the effectiveness of these mobile, human advertisements.