Hightower Lowdown

Corporate advertising is everywhere. Now meet the latest advertising advance: Wizmark.

That's wiz, as in, take a whiz. Yes, we're talking about male urination, and the advertising potential therein. Some of you fellers will have met those little TV screens some places have above the urinals, so you can watch an ad as you...well, whiz.

But no, I'm talking about ads in the urinals. Indeed, ads you whiz on.

For those who don't know, public urinals often have plastic screens that hold deodorizers, right above the drain. Wizmark has now accessorized these things with ads. Not some bland printed ad, either. Dr. Richard Deutsch, creator of the Wizmark, has brought to us the world's first—are you ready?—"interactive urinal communicator."

He offers one that has a motion detector. When a gentleman steps forward to do his business, a ring of flashing lights are triggered in the screen, drawing the gentleman's startled attention to your corporate logo, safely protected in the middle of the screen by a waterproof casing.

Or, if that's too subtle, Wizmark offers a voice & sound model with a microprocessor that shouts ad slogans and corporate jingles at the urinator. Still not tacky enough? Gotcha covered. Dr. Deutsch has the patent on a radio-frequency model that can read your ID card and personally greet you when you step up to the urinal: "Hey, Frank, good to see you again!"

I don't even want to know where the ad hucksters are taking us.