So, I get the whole advertising thing. You have a product and you want to trade that product for my dollars. Cool, you show me your product and I decide. Then someone has a similar product and so the two of you must convince me that one product is superior over the other.
There’s a pretty good system in place where a company with a product pays to show its product to me. This money helps to subsidize small crochet oriented magazines and Hollywood’s blistering cocaine habit. I’m still with this. I understand and accept that in order to keep the cost of my magazines reasonable there will be some advertising in the magazine and that advertising will be directed towards my interests (like yarn stores and bongs and hippo leashes).
Also, the ads are clearly labeled as such. When I flip through my magazine it is clear to me what part is an article and what part is advertising. And, if the magazine is good and pure, they will discuss products from a neutral point of view and not as thinly veiled corporate whores.
Stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this.
Now, mostly I’m talking about magazines because I don’t watch tv and the few times that I do happen to see tv I end up yelling at it (or yelling at the person next to me to turn the Puppy Bowl back on or I will disembowel them). I’m not really in a position to write about tv advertising (except that it pisses me the fuck off and I can’t stand it and it makes me want to people).
To recap, I’m not opposed to advertising so long as it is clearly labeled as such and it helps to subsidize a related product that I want to purchase, like a magazine.
What I am really opposed to is blatant product placement in movies! Look, it’s obviously not subsidizing the movie or I wouldn’t have to pay 8.2 billion dollars just to get in (and this doesn’t count popcorn and Icees!). Yesterday we took my cousin Rosalie to see the Get Smart movie (my review…meh). 110 minutes of ads for Post-it notes, Vino scooters, GMC SUVS (one minute they’re in a Yukon, the next they’re in a Denali. Each shot requires the camera to linger on the nameplate of the car) and Chanel. Man, fuck ass. I already paid to see the movie, I didn’t get any sort of discount or break and I have to sit here and watch commercials.
Commercials that aren’t even labeled as such. Jackasses. Of course as part of their partnership or whoredom or brimstonic pact with Baphomet they are required to show the product over and over again in various panning shots.
and y’all wonder why I’m so damned crabby all the time!
On a completely unrelated note:
There’s a repair dude in the other side of the duplex and whenever he talks he sounds like a toothless with a mouth full of mushrooms trying to tell us that Timmy fell down the well. Jesus! Be quiet man! His tone and pitch are so weird I picture him stumbling around in his white painter’s pants and talking on his Nextel Wiener450 Super Beep Phone. To complete the picture, he’s listening to “oldies”. Why is it that in the almost 3 decades since the 70’s ended they haven’t managed to add to this “oldies” array?