Advertisers to get a glimpse of Apple Watch promise, challenge

Reuters:

At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, mobile-marketing firm TapSense plans to release an Apple Watch ad-buying service. The service will provide a first glimpse of how businesses can serve up ads on the watch, even though the gadget will not be available until later this year.

At issue: the same qualities that render the watch exciting to Madison Avenue, such as the ability to detect customers approaching a store and to zap an ad directly to their wrists, also risk alienating those customers.

Before any one panics and screams about ads on the Apple Watch (oh, too late – they already are), keep in mind this is a “service” being offered to developers to include in their apps and there is no indication that Apple will allow such functionality. And, even if Apple does, I can promise you it will be an entirely opt-in process. Apple is not going to allow developers to push ads at you without your permission.