Commercial Messages

TV commercials can sometimes overwhelm us with audio and visual effects so their actual message is obscured. In this season of heightened football activity, it is even more important that we can correctly decode the commercials put before us. Therefore, as a public service, we present this guide to some of the more popular current commercials.

An Artist's Life

TV Ads

TV Facemash

As recounted in the movie, The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg originally created a site called Facemash, in which viewers were shown pairs of photos of Harvard students and asked to pick which one was hotter. To update this concept, we'd like to use more familiar faces from TV.  So here's our TV Facemash.

Who's hotter?

Progressive Insurance	T-Mobile
Jess (Domino's Pizza)	Pat (Saturday Night Live)
Geico	Mucinex

Saw Ad ... Must Buy

So NPR's Marketplace is reporting that Jay Leno may do live ads on his new 10:00 show next season. Rico Gagliano waxed nostalgic for the days when Johnny Carson used to plug products in the middle of the show. Apparently NBC, in desperation, is weighing having Leno do the same thing. The theory is that TiVo and DVR users will stop zapping through the commercials once they see Leno's face. Kenneth Wilbur, a professor of marketing (Isn't that an oxymoron?) at USC, points out that NBC's audience is "more tech-savvy," and has higher rates of DVR usage.

So, do they think all these tech-savvy users can't tell a plug from a monologue? Or that they'll appreciate being tricked into watching these ads? "Hey, I stopped zapping for this? Guess I'd better buy it!"

That's like "Gee, these Viagra sellers have really filled up my email box. I'd better get some."

Or "This movie was plastered over the whole side of a bus. It must be good!"

Or my personal favorite: "These Verizon ads are 6 decibels louder than everything else. I'd better subscribe. (I can hear them now!)"

How stupid do they think we are?

Media Critical Judgement -- YAFS

As I've railed previously on this blog, most recently here, advertising is the commodity on the Web. Or, more precisely, attention is the commodity. That's what all content providers and advertisers are after ... a bit of your attention.

That's fine. If that's what supports the creation of excellent content like this blog (I wish!), so be it. But as readers and viewers, we have a certain obligation to develop critical faculties and judgment. We need to acquire the ability to discriminate between the well argued and documented, and the merely loud.

This is no different from TV commercials. They're all louder than the programs they infest, so you can hear them even when you go to the fridge for a snack. And they all try to be cute and memorable, as opposed to persuasive. Think about the commercials that stick in your mind. Do you think Geico Insurance is better than any other because they have cavemen or a cute animated gecko? Does that horde of extras stalking the Verizon customer really prove their service is better?

Given that more research is done on the effectiveness of ads than probably any other aspect of human behavior, these techniques must work, despite their irrationality. That's why we all need to learn to evaluate advertising claims critically. And because of product placements, viral marketing, and other means of infiltrating seemingly innocuous content, we need to apply this critical thinking to all content. Otherwise, we're just supporting and encouraging more intrusive and misleading promotion, as Seth Godin describes on his blog.

My father used to sit in front of the TV and say "YAFS!" to the commercials. (This was in the days before mute buttons.) YAFS is an acronym for "You Are Full of ... well, something." No exaggeration. I grew up watching TV with this constant reminder to be skeptical of commercials. You can imagine the cynicism this engendered.

Now you know why I'm such a curmudgeon.