Apparently people do actually click on banner ads – if only to deliver an electric shock to radio show guests.
After coming into Radio Helsinki to promote the acquisition of a creative studio, the agency bosses for hasan & partners were consciously aware the interview was in danger of sending listeners to sleep, so they decided to spice things up: chief executive Eka Ruola and chairman Ami Hasan wired themselves up to an electric current and gave listeners the opportunity to send a clear signal of disapproval if they strayed off topic during the live interview.
The aptly named studio, Perfect Fools, connected electrodes to Rasberry Pi via an ad server which delivered a shock every time the banner ads registered a click.
The consequences were inevitable and the results can be seen in the video above.
Ruola and Hasan had barely started the interview when a succession of electric shocks were delivered via electrodes attached to pair's forearms. Ruola was the target of most of listeners' wrath, receiving three times as many shocks compared with his companion.
"It was very painful," he said. Ami Hasan added: "People can be so cruel, so unfair."
While some agencies are often of accused of failing to market themselves as imaginatively as their clients, the same can't be said of this one.
Related: Charity shock tactics: do they work?
