Top floor
[00:00.36] Have you ever been in a lift with the big cheese in your company?
[00:04.87] It happened to me a couple of times.
[00:07.62] And did I take advantage of the situation to deliver my elevator pitch?
[00:13.39] Not a chance. He was surrounded by people buttering him up all the way to the top floor!
[00:20.91] Lifts have an interesting history.
[00:23.42] Today, the more important you are, the higher you live or work. Penthouses have fantastic views for boardrooms and living rooms.
[00:34.18] But it hasn't always been that way.
[00:37.69] Before the days of lifts, richer people would often prefer to live on the ground floor.
[00:43.96] Poorer people lived on the upper floors – and they had to use the stairs.
[00:49.97] In any case, whatever your pay grade, the confined space of a lift makes for an awkward encounter.
[00:58.49] It's hard not to notice the uneasiness of a group of strangers in a confined space who have no time to develop any kind of bond.
[01:08.50] But if marketing people have their way, that's all going to change.
[01:13.77] Jason Whale, sales manager at Elevators Ltd, says: "It's a very anxious experience the time you spend in a lift.
[01:23.79] If you have things around you, you take away that awkwardness. We all look at our phones sometimes or look down at the floor.
[01:33.31] Well, surely it's better to look at advertisements on the walls..."
[01:39.07] He sees a lot of potential in this box in which we spend a few minutes every day.
[01:44.83] Whale explains: "As technology becomes slimmer and cheaper, there are so many different ways to enhance a lift with lightboxes, with moving images, with television screens!
[01:57.86] It becomes quite exciting for us, and hopefully a little bit more interesting for the people who use lifts."
[02:05.63] Who knows what the lifts of the future will look like? Perhaps they will become the places where everybody wants to be.
[02:13.15] Time for a business meeting? Ready to party? Come on everybody, let's get into the lift!
