Oh, no: Placecast wants to bring location-based deals to your car’s dashboard

If a screen exists, someone’s going to find a way to sell you things on it.

Just look at location-marketing company Placecast, which has teamed up with Aha Radio to bring location-based  coupons to the screens in people’s cars.

Yes, you read that right: The screens in people’s cars.

Companies can use this to set up “geofenced” offers, which will pop up on driver’s radios and displays when they pass store locations. Drivers who like what they hear can then touch a button that permits Placecast to send the deals to their smartphones.

While the idea sounds like a particularly intrusive (and dangerous) form of pop up, it’s all opt-in, so if drivers don’t want to see the ads, they won’t. And by teaming up with Aha Radio, Placecast says it has a good deal of ad targeting data, including demographic info, psychographic insights, and what kind of music and radio stations the driver likes to listen to. This means it has relevance.

As far as car compatibility goes, Placecast’s ads should work in roughly 50 models from 10 of the biggest carmakers.

It’s too early to say how all of this will be received (Placecast expects the best), but let’s just hope that all the audio ads aren’t as bad as the one in the video below.