Factoring your photos and vids into advertising campaigns

Is this smart or insidious? The New York Times has a story (Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras) about all those neon signs that end up in your photo albums.

As a result of the growing popularity of consumer-generated pictures, videos and e-mail messages on Internet sites like YouTube and Myspace, advertisers are getting consumers to essentially do their jobs for them... spreading advertisers’ messages well beyond Manhattan, using their cell phones and video cameras as they walk through the marketing crossroads of the world.

Maybe time for William Gibson to update Raymond Chandler:

I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and like a living room that had been closed too long. But the coloured lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful. There ought to be a monument to the man who invented neon lights. Fifteen stories high, solid marble. There’s a boy who really made something out of nothing. (The Little Sister)