Last Friday I took a flight to visit some of my relatives who live in Montana and Wyoming. I flew from Seattle to Portland and caught a connecting flight to Billings Montana. Unfortunately, I lost my cell phone at the SeaTac security checkpoint before boarding the plane in Seattle. When I landed in Portland I was forced to exit the security area in an attempt to find a T-Mobile provider (not so lucky there) so I could suspend my phone service and get a replacement phone.

Usually, I wouldn’t be leaving the security area since I hate going through the checkpoints in the first place and don’t see a need to do it again for no reason, but this time I am actually glad that I did, since I wouldn’t have noticed the new advertising medium that Zappos.com (and others) have employed into their marketing arsenals. It appears that airports nationwide are now testing a new security bin advertising program at airport security checkpoints.

It always amazes me to see some of the creative ideas companies come up with to make better use of technology and the Web within their Offline or traditional advertising campaigns. Streamlining or automating any of your company processes, whether Online or Off, can save any business owner big bucks over time (allows for less employees on the payroll, saves time, easier to use, etc).

That’s why it didn’t surprise me one bit to hear that at least one savvy marketing company has now found a way to automate electronic billboards using Web-based software to create, upload and edit any of the billboard images, any time, giving full control to the advertiser. The marketing company and software creators also offer ongoing technical support and software assistance for around the same monthly cost as non-electronic billboards, that are not managed by software.

Ever wonder what would happen if traditional brick-and-mortar stores were setup and organized more like Online stores? One of the things many traditional retailers can learn from eTailers is how to improve their customer experience, store layout and organization. If more retail shops concentrated on some of the things that work well for eCommerce sites, they may find that their customers will be happier and may even buy more often from the physical location. Having happy customers, who buy often could mean increased sales, better customer reach and more brand buzz.