Thanks to Gary Thornton for alerting me to this one via BoingBoing.

Another awareness example from kitchen appliance manufacturer AEG, who get this, are advertising how quiet their kitchen appliances are by alerting people to ambient noise levels in the centre of London. They’ve set up a blog to accompany the campaign as well!

What’s perhaps most interesting about this are some of the comments on the BoingBoing blog entry including the comment from #pinup57 stating that in his opinion “Being ‘aware’ of something is UNDERSTANDING something.”  His general point being that more information or context is required to make the db reading relevant.

As far as viral campaigns go, this one seems to be going well so far (this blog post of course contributing to that success). But the crucial question is will the awareness that AEG are promoting lead to better sales? Is it a relevant concern for many of the people who will see the advert and does the billboard do enough to draw association between the data (the decibel level) and the information contained in the advertisement (the products AEG are selling)?

Perhaps, much like the previous example awareness here is not so much about making something explicitly relevant to those who interact with it, but rather just sowing a seed of awareness that will then encourage people to go on to make their own associations about its relevance. 

This is what I perceive as the distinction between extrinsic awareness - i.e. – encouraging the user to make a direct association of awareness and relevance (the problem and the solution) and intrinsic awareness - encouraging the user to somewhat less predictably, but perhaps more powerfully draw their own associations of relevance. Many of the comments of BoingBoing allude to the fact that people felt that they needed more context or information in order for this advertisement to be relevant. Put another way they wanted more of an extrinsic association between the db meter and what it was saying about the product it was selling (or for that matter the environment it was positioned in). They didn’t like being left to draw their own associations or have to go away and research sound pressure levels!

I’m no advertising exec. but I can but assume that this latter strategy as I identify it, is better for such mass-media advertising that has to be designed to interact with a wide range of different users…

What do you think? Have you seen any other examples of design for intrinsic awareness like this? An advert or product that highlights a problem and leaves you to make up your own mind whether it’s relevant to you? If you have I’d really like to hear about it so please get in touch either by the comments form below or direct to me by email or twitter.