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Would Fonzie Sell You A Lexus?
Faux_Pseudo writes: "In an attempt to flood your field of vison with more advertising the NY Times (free reg)has an article on how "digital technology may be used for the first time to place "virtual" products in scenes of a syndicated television series." If you were taken aback by The Duke selling Coors beer you might want to unplug the TV now." This sort of digital manipulation isn't totally new, but it seems like what we've seen so far is just the tip of the reality-distortion iceberg. As xueexueg puts it, "With any luck we'll see Capt. Janeway ask the food replicator for a meal, and a personal pan pizza will materialize."
I don't know how anyone else feels, but I am particularly offended by those Alcatel commercials "featuring" Martin Luther King and Lou Gerhig.
...not for you. The business of a TV station is not to entertain viewers for free, but to sell viewers' time and attention to advertisers.
If you don't want to be a product, turn off the TV, get off your geek ass, and go do something--ANYTHING. Take a look at whitedot.org sometime.
I like it. But it would only make sense for their SUV model. Take my 14 mpg and like it, bitch!
Don't laugh. There's an organization in Indianapolis called CMG Worldwide, whose main business is buying up the rights to use the names and likenesses of dead celebrities. Their list of "clients" (that's what they call them!) include Duke Ellington, Frank Lloyd Wright, Glenn Miller, Buddy Holly, Mark Twain, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. Picture a web page that is copyrighted by CMG and "The Estate Of Mark Twain"; that's what you get when you go to the official web site of the famous author who died in 1910!. And among their latest news, CMG is proud to "welcome Frank Zappa as its newest client". There's something morbid about the way they phrase their business relationship with the dead.
CMG's founder, Mark Roesler, is credited on the website with having "establishing the rights of deceased personalities throughout the world and has been a pioneer in protecting intellectual property rights abroad".
Go to their about CMG worldwide page, and see if that doesn't chill your blood. To me, at least, this smacks of avarice that's extreme even for vultures. Wish I could get a gig representing clients who don't argue about their contracts or how much of the pie they're getting, and whose names and likenesses could conceivably pay all my expenses if I could lobby Congress hard enough to keep them trademarked forever.
I mean, come on. Even with the increasingly restrictive US copyright and trademark laws, Mark Twain should be in the public domain with his books. He's been dead for over 90 years, and his writings were in public domain before the latest extentions to the copyright laws a few years ago.
And I'm not going to stand for it. I'm going to write my congressman a letter. But I'll be taking an Amtrak train tonight to help a friend do some work on his house. I'll have to write the letter on my Palm Vx; it's portability and functionality are incredible. Of course, on the train I'll have plenty of tunes thanks to my Panasonic portable CD player with 40-second anti-skip technology! And I won't go hungry thanks to Snickers. Packed with peanuts, Snickers really satisfies.
Once I get there, the chores will be quick work, thanks to my new Black and Decker cordless screwdriver, the PowerDriver(tm). It's powered by the VersaPak(tm) system, so if it runs out of juice I can just pop in the spare battery pack.
Is this post your nightmare yet? I can keep going if you like!
Sounds like the story "Remake," by Connie Willis. The future of television is nothing more than endless digitally-created remakes of old movies with digitally-created actors based on famous names, like River Pheonix starring in Casablanca.
Funny thing is, there were endless lawsuits about copyrights. In the story, no Fred Astaire movie could be broadcast because of copyright disputes over the image of Fred Astaire.
Isn't that what we're coming to? Endless copyright fights over the images of famous people? Wouldn't it be hysterical if all the movie houses started snapping up the copyrights to all famous people-- MGM gets the image of George Washington, Universal gets the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man, etc.
Yeah. I'd have to laugh.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Instead of getting the broadcaster or cable head end to replace an ad-image, that should be a capability of the the set top device or personal recorder. That way the you get personally targetted advertsing. And it doesnt just have to apply to an actor/actress holding a drink; you could apply it to names of shops (instead of LA shop names, you could replace it with your local neighborhood shop name [yet another form of advertising]). The ultimate would be to replace the actors/actresses on the show with ones you like - may be a little hard to get voices/accents to work properly. Personalization gone amuck... I tell you what.
What about companies that paid for their product to be placed in the show in the first place? If Budweiser paid good $$$ to have the main character hold a Bud Light, won't they sue when the re-run shows a Coors?
I needed a good reason to stop watching TV. This ought to do nicely. Too bad I won't've really gotten my money's worth out of the rabbit ears, though.
(I really don't understand this compulsion to stick advertising everywhere - it can't possibly be improving life or the arts, and people seemed to generally get by fine without it for millenia. But I do know that I _hate_ advertising, and will consciously avoid it and filter it out no matter how good it is, how targeted towards me it is, whether or not it's actually useful for me, or if doing so harms someone. That it's advertising at all is enough to make me avoid it.)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That would explain the cancellation of The Lone Gunmen. After all they used LINUX (or at least Langley and Byers did. . . ). M$ obviously paid Fox to take 'em off the air. . .
;^>
Um, yeah, or else the show just really sucked...
Do you have a
It's been happening for years in games... Ever see the Mountain Dew and Budweiser versions of the arcade game Tapper?
Now, Tivo users will see an icon during Lexus commercials, encouraging them to view TV shows sponsored by Lexus.
So when you're watching The Simpsons, you see an icon during the Lexus commercial, encouraging you to watch the Happy Days marathon, featuring Fonzie selling you Lexuses.
I wanted to work in advertising, but my parents were married.
rOD.
--
Rod Begbie done this, and he's not
Protect consumers? How am I being injured if Captain Picard sips a Pepsi One instead of his standard Earl Grey? Yes, my sensibilities are offended, but are you really advocating a Department of Offended Sensibility?
If you don't like what you see on TV, vote with your dollar. Turn the television off. Read a book. Or better yet, create your own ad-free art. Then, you'll be contributing to a real solution to the problem.
Naw, what the hell am I suggesting? Why creatively solve the problem when we can sue?
I guess it won't be a Dodge much longer then, eh?
One company that does these ads also did the matrixy Eyevision for the Super Bowl and the virtual first down lines too.
That's almost more scary. In a sense, the blatant promotion was an artistic (if one can say that about an Adam Sandler movie) part of the movie - it was overdone because it was a parody of sports stars hawking merchandise on TV. You could argue that toning that down really changes the movie, in which case the original producers might have a problem with it.
Not to mention that if Subway paid for product placement in the movie, they paid for that placement every time the movie was shown.
On the other hand, maybe if advertisers realize that their ads in movies aren't permanent, they'll give up on the idea :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That's funny, I thought MLK Jr. using "I Have a Dream" to hawk networking gear was possibly the least tasteful thing I've ever seen on TV (and I sat through Iran-Contra and parts of the impeachment, too). I don't really care what happens to the images of Astaire, Wayne, or Gehrig - they were entertainers to begin with, so in a sense they've already sold their souls. But Mr. King was a spiritual leader and (in the broader sense) a statesman. If you can (in a sense) put words in his mouth, then there really is nothing sacred.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I respectfully submit that if you thought that was off-topic, maybe you just didn't get it. See, the joke is that you can complain about the free market all you want (and many do, often for legitimate reasons) but in the end it consistently provides you with more value than any other economic system has done so far. Because in the end, we all like cheap orange juice.
I guess I've just never seen "free-marketer" used in such a pejorative fashion before. For a moment there I thought I was in Russia of 30 years ago or China of 20 years ago.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Good point - imagine Mr. King exclaiming the praises of his Colt 45...*shudder* It could have been much worse.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Sorry, I was referring to Billy Dee Williams selling Colt 45 liquor :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
You're kidding - FedEx didn't have to pay for that? It was practically "Fedex: The Movie"...
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
* Sigh. *
That would be Weezer. They just came out with a new album. It is quite good.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
All we're talking about here with real-time insertion is the ability to seamlessly do product placement in post-production. Aside from obscuring real things that were actually there ala the Times Square/New Year's broadcasts of last year, and anachronisms in really old movies and T.V., the ethical issues are pretty much the same.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
I never cease to find amazing the fact that we have the power of six billion minds and a whole fucking planet with which to just kick ass all over the place, and the best thing a great portion of us can think to do is to figure out how to sell sugard watered to each other better.
TV has pointed out one uniquely true thing: our minds can be shaped shaped shaped easily and repeatably. But, I still think that people would spend their time on more noble and worthwhile pursuits if only somene would SUGGEST to them what to do. Solution: just mix in a little algebra with each mention of N'Sync; all they need is to realize the power of their own brains to break out of these stupid chains...
That would explain the cancellation of The Lone Gunmen. After all they used LINUX (or at least Langley and Byers did. . . ). M$ obviously paid Fox to take 'em off the air. . .
(/include)
I was watching Happy Gilmore the other day on network television and I noticed that a lot of the product placement ads were digitial REMOVED. For those of you who haven't seen this movie, it is very funny but the product placement goes WAY overboard. For instance TWO scenes take place at a Subway(TM) restaurant and Happy wears a Subway shirt for the last 40 mins of the movie. The weird thing was that the Subway logo was digitially greyed out (correct spelling - I am Canadian :) ) most of the time as were other ads. Technology is a double edged sword ;), we just have to make sure that consumers don't get screwed out of their side of the sword by legislation.
-Shieldwolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
So who's the bad guy? The advertiser or the estates? Well, that's easy, the advertisers are always the bad guy. They're evil by nature.
Anyhow, I understand your offense, and I suppose the mere fact that those speeches are used in advertisements is inherently offensive even if they don't have Dr. King dancing with a vacuum cleaner or pouring beer.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Worse, He could be at the wedding at Cana and they run out of wine so He turns water into Coors Light.
I'm sure the day will come when something like this happens.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Are you referring to Vivien Leigh?
It's been going on for a long time over here in America, too. Off the top of my head, there's been ads using digitally altered footage of Fred Astaire, John Wayne, Martin Luther King and Lou Gehrig (although the last two were tasteful, I thought), not to mention the movie Ben Hur (or whatever that famous chariot race scene was from).
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Well, I certainly see your point, however, there are two different types of uses here. First we have Fred Astaire dancing with the product being sold and we have the Duke pouring Coors Light beer (or whatever it was), and then we have a commercial which uses images of the two famous speeches, but doesn't manipulate the image to place their product in with the person in question. I would have to agree that it might be seen as trivializing Dr. King's speech, which is wrong, but at least he wasn't up there with a bottle of liquor saying "I have Jim Beam" or "I brush with Gleem" or "I play with Bleem" or something equally stupid.
Anyhow, as far as tasteless goes, nothing beats the typical network TV sitcom. Tasteless and unfunny. (Tasteless and funny would be OK... but that's a different discussion). The only thing worse is the sleazy tabloid trash passing as network news "magazines" like Doltline.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm just waiting for the day that Bo and Luke get lost and fire up the General Lee's OnStar system.
Not to pick nits, but the General Lee was a Dodge Challenger, and OnStar is a GM thing.
What's your damage, Heather?
The last comment to unplug the TV is the best one.
Seriously-- I don't have cable any more and haven't had it for years now. The occasional time I do happen to see some television only serves to reinforce my opinion that it's all crap. Other people I know have commented that the longer you go without it, the less you want anything to do with it.
So, ditch commercial TV and go play some games (until product placement occurs there too), go biking, do something with your children, or do any one of millions of other cool things waiting out there.
-Roy
Critics complain there is no appropriate manner of inserting digital ad images into a TV show because it blurs the line that ought to separate editorial content from paid peddling.
...
Mr. Chester said he would ask the Federal Communications Commission to "examine this as to its impact"...
I don't see how this is any different than normal product placement. Sure it's not in its pure recorded form, but neither is a 2.5 hour movie trimmed to fit a 2 hour time slot. Product placement has been around for a long time. Advertisers are just keeping up with the times and "going digital". The only thing I find interesting about this is the fact that digital video editing is good enough for them to make it cost-effective to insert products in to a rerun.
What about protecting the integrity of the actor?
Will Capt. Janeway have any rights as to the product her character consumes and therefore endorses? I'm sure at the time of the initial filming if she violently objected to pitching a particular product for moral reasons that they would have taken it into consideration.
Maybe she doesn't like Pizza Hut because they perform cruel testing on baby pepperonies or something. She might not want to be associated with them.
load "linux",8,1
(It was a cross between this technology and "The Running Man.")
Life imitates art?
---
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
I'm not a free-marketer in general, but it's certainly not a right to have advertisment free entertainment. If the placed ads begin to detract from the enjoyment of the show, then it will start to lose viewers. Obviously, there's a sweet spot somewhere that maximizes revenue.
Is there any reason why the people who own the rights to the shows shouldn't be allowed to attempt to maximize their revenue? I don't see how society would suffer as a whole if the practice became widespread. Obviously the viewers lose, but that's the perogative of a seller who has what a buyer wants: in this case, entertainment.
Of course, when advertising and (theoretically) objective news mix, that's a whole different matter.
On the other hand advertising costs money which is reflected in the price of every thing you buy. It's a lose-lose for the consumer who not only has to sit through advertising but has to pay more for the underarm deoderant too.
You forgot to mention one alternative. Collect money for quality programming without ads. Kind of what HBO does huh?
War is necrophilia.
Well my point is this. Those people who can not afford $15.00 per month for cable would be much better off if broadcast TV was like HBO. I am positive the added cost to everything they bought this month due to advertising budget was more then $15 or $25. Every time they bought Milk they paid for those stupid milk mustache ads, every time they paid for toilet paper they paid more.
But really who really cares about the poor in the first place. This is America land of the Dubya. Between the Liberterians, Republicans, and the rest of the corporatist politicians the poor don't count for a pile of crap. They can't buy anything anyway so who cares if they watch TV or not.
War is necrophilia.
Arthur C. Clarke is ahead of the game again. One of his early '90s books features a guy who made billions by getting the exclusive license to remove all traces of cigarettes from old movies, because people thought smoking was so revolting.
Of course he didn't think of the real moneybags aspect, from marketting, but that's just the next step.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
There are some interesting low-tech examples documented in The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs in Stalin's Russia .
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Most of the people on slashdot probably don't know people who can't afford cable. I do. Some people I know can't afford the $15/month for basic cable, much less the $10/month for HBO. Their soures of info are the local paper and broadcast tv. And, in their market, the news is paid for by the entertainment.
Best Slashdot Co
The question is, how obtrusive will it be? Will it be ads on billboards in the background, or on the sides of buses as they go by. Or will it be logos on the characters t-shirts?
Best Slashdot Co
I think this would be hilarious. I'd even like to extend it to non-syndicated shows (e.g., Tom Baker's Doctor offering Davros a green M&M instead of a jelly baby), but that's the kicker with syndication. [Side note: anybody else catch the syndication joke in Spy Kids?]
The only way I could see this going badly wrong is when the television images used are recent enough that the joke isn't apparent, e.g., the Duke selling me a Coors is one thing, former Secretary of State Albright selling me a Coors is something else.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Sigh. What I get for posting without coffee...
That sounds stupid since the show in question is Law & Order. To clarify: I wouldn't really have a problem with new episodes doing this. I might have a problem watching reruns of a two-year old episode with a character drinking soda out of a cup featuring a currently-running movie painted across the cup.
Now, for more coffee.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Its fun to watch for subtle product placements:
"Goldeneye"
1. James Bond opens up an IBM thinkpad
2. (hard to see). Near the end of the movie when the base blows up, you'll see a CRT with an OS/2 bootup screen.(I think it's a bootup screen).
But what's not to say that a movie named "Corvette Summer" isn't some commercial by Chevrolet?
Television is a waste of time- it requires no thought, no action, and fails on nearly every count to be mentally stimulating (excepting PBS and the BBC, but including BBCAmerica)- and to top it off, it tries to cram the thing I hate the most down my throat- ads.
The ads got to me, to the point of violence. It was interesting, when I was a kid, to tape an episode of Star Trek DS9 and come to the cold realization that out of that 60 minutes of time, less than 45 minutes of it was the program. Deduct credits and intro, and you're down to 42, if that. And probably less these days. That boiled down to three minutes of clutter and fifteen minutes of ads for beer, preparation H, and cadillacs.
I realized I was getting more out of books, computers, and talking to people that I ever managed to squeeze out of the accursed idiot box. The constant volume shifts between the incessant ads and the blase content were giving me headaches, and the pervasiveness of the marginally talented local news personalities with their overblown egos really started to get to me after I realized that nothing I'd seen on the news bore a direct affect on my day-to-day life. I haven't watched television in over a year- I've made a few exceptions for movies, mostly older films, but in general I've turned off, tuned out, peeled my ass off of the damned couch and done something with my life.
Turning on a television is a waste of energy. Watching the damned thing is a waste of your life- what's going to make for better memories- a brain full of Voyager and Buffy episodes or a brain full of conversation, creative work, and real experience that the television is never going to come close to giving you?
Kill the damned thing- it's completely opt-in, so you have no right to bitch about the fucking ads when you can turn it off and do something meaningful.
It is disappointing they're looking at a show such as Law and Order for this. I think it takes away from what a quality show it really is, and will drive viewers away with such crass commercialism.
At least pick something that's more the equivalent of intellectual cotton candy, like 3rd Rock from the Sun. Those viewers are more likely to not be as offended...
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
as it stands, advertising already has a much more insidious impact on the determination of the content of the shows that we watch than adding a few coke cans represents. putting a pizza hut box in friends is a clear endorsement of pizza hut -- is this honestly worse for its digital fabrication than, say, behind the scenes deals to decide what they should wear on the basis of the gap's agenda, or giving plot vetos to large conservative corporations like P&G?
if you aren't going into this with your eyes open, you're setting yourself up. if you aren't watching with the understanding that TV's job is to deliver audiences to advertisers, you'll miss the point every time.
now, what if dan rather starts putting up fake billboards in 'documentary' footage? that's the real question, and i know it's been done, but what about, for example, changing all signs to read in english when reporting from other countries? where's the slippery slope here? i'm not really sure.
this is pretty effed up, tho, i'll say that much. makes my head spin a little.
god is just pretend.
Already happening - in reverse. Remember one of the networks digitally removed NBC from Times Square during their NewYearsEve2K broadcast?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'd just like to point out that while the MPAA would prefer to not let us own any content, ever, it's ok with them to own the likeness of a human being to use for whatever ends they see fit, for ever and ever, amen. For all we know, the Duke couldn't stand the taste of Coors. I wouldn't have a problem with them 'touching up' existing commercials and reissuing them, but the idea of owning the likeness of a human being is more than a little disturing. On the other hand, at least there's a legal history of actors winning lawsuits against studios that misuse their image -- check out Crispin Glover's lawsuit vs. the producers of Back to the Future 2.
my karma ran over your dogma
I'll pick nits! The General Lee was a Dodge Charger, not a Challenger. Probably 1968, possibly 1969, but I'll leave that to another nit-picker.
I personally can't stand to watch that show, due to the sheer number of Chargers destroyed doing the stunt work.
[Member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Mopars (ASPCOM)]
This message has been scanned for memes and dangerous content by MindScanner, and is believed to be unclean.
The term usually applies to movies, where specific scenes have a commercial product (pepsi, coke, m&m) with the camera implicitly focused on the product.
The effect is the same in this case. Specific placement of commercial products in hopes that the viewers buy the product.
This brings some ethical issues to mind? What if the rights to a certain program were sold to another company. Then that company wished to advertise a product that was controversial in some way. The actors/writers/producers that originally worked on that program would have no say in whether they want that product advertised in their work. This would be particularly bad for the actors that are advertising a product which they do NOT really want to endorse. It could give them a bad reputation even though they haven't done anything wrong.
Besides, this kind of advertising is limited to consumer products. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue if advertisers would make ads that people actually wanted to watch.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
(Thanks to SNPP.com
Krusty: And all I keep seeing is dead celebrities hawking products! You've got poor old Vincent Price floating around in a toilet keg telling me about the *horrors* of an unfresh bowl!
Although the script doesn't have the joke, he also says, "I seriously doubt that Winston Churchill would eat at Der Wienerschnitzel!"
Ahh, Matt Groening... when will your show stop being so damn relevent?
I'm just waiting for the day that Bo and Luke get lost and fire up the General Lee's OnStar system.
Guy's crusing along in his generic car at 80-85 mph, when suddenly a Lexus pulls on the onramp at 45 mph and cuts across 5 lanes of traffic, cutting him off. He slams on his brakes and tailgates the Lexus and tailgates the car down to the next exit where it gets off. At the bottom of the exit ramp the light's red so the Lexus stops. He gets out of his car and walks up to the Lexus. He knocks on the window and it rolls down. Inside is a tiny old woman who can't see over the steering wheel. He says "Excuse me, you cut me off back there..." She looks at him, gives him the finger, and says "Fuck you! I drive a Lexus!" and then floors it. Fade to black, voice over, "Fuck you. I drive a Lexus."
I want to pitch this to Lexus. Think they'll go for it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not to mention more suspenseful than anything else on TV. Even the most creepy, spine tingling, scare you to death movies aren't half as bad as a real guy going "Look! The most posionous snake in the world! He's mighty pissed at me for distrubin' him. Let's have a closer look!"
Screw advertising, f**k mass media, and start treatng commercial culture for the lowest common denominator, compromised crap it is.
Stick with Do It Yourself media:
Read a book. Travel. Get together with friends and trade stories. Stalk squirrels in the park. Get a border collie and train it to herd Aibo bots.
And then enjoy a 16 Oz. bottle of cool, refreshing Moxie.
Stefan
** You see?
I wonder if, fifty years hence, today's high-tech product placements will seem just as artificial and funny as the old radio car battery and Jello tapioca pudding placements are today.
And now, another thrilling adventure with Tom Mix and his Ralston Straight-Shooters!
It's strange what celebrities do outside of the eye of the American press. When I was living in Japan, I used to see commercials with Arnold Swartzenegger (sp?) advertising things like beer and canned ham. Sly Stallone did ads for cars all the time, and Meg Ryan used to commercials for chocolate covered pretzels, a fruit drink, and a couple of different cars. There were tons of other ones too, people like Wynona Rider, Randy Quaid, Brad Pitt, Chevy Chase... Celebrities you think would be above making commercials for fruit drinks and canned hams. I seem to remember some website out there that had a bunch of these to download, but I can't remember where. It's been so long.
--- Rectum?! Damn near killed em'! - Confucius
What's next? Digital characters doing ads for real products? Next thing you know Lara Croft will be doing an ad for Pepsi! Oh wait...
--- Rectum?! Damn near killed em'! - Confucius
...he'd sell you a Harley.
Lexuses (Lexi?) are too wussy for the Fonz!
No sig? Sigh...
Make your own doctor/latex glove joke...
For those who don't remember or didn't see the movie, they had to have the actors & actresses hock products because there were no commerical breaks in the "show." It was All Truman, All the Time, so they had to make their money by getting the people who were cast to talk about products and use taglines (confused the heck out of Truman at least once).
With people able to fast forward through commercials, we may see more of this. The difference being that with digital insertion, they can change what the product is at any time, for any place. A metropolitan area might get an ad for Starbucks, whereas a small rural town might get an ad for some local coffeeshop where there is no Starbucks.
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
The temptation to exchange freedom for security is huge. To play a component in the machine. To take root in the corporate titty. It's called the job scene. The temptation (meme? dream? programming?)is so overwhelmingly huge in fact that it blinds us to any possible alternatives. The promise of security and possible (heh) profit is a relative sun to the relative horrible black abyss of the threat of unemployment. We see no other way, so we stick our balls in the vise... But I hate the vise. I hate the machine that made this vise. I hate VISE COMMERCIALS. I hate... my balls? My flesh? A knife is cheap, in fact I have one right here...
Right now we have commercials and entertainment. Commercials serve business (farmers of humans); entertainment serves the people/cattle. People invest max attention in entertainment and min attention in commercials. Business does the opposite of course. Obvious so far? In the name of grabbing more cattle attention, commercials are made more entertaining and entertainment is made more commercial. Natural convergence, yes? In the golden future there will be no commercials, just great entertainment that pushes the business agenda 100%. Pure dreams of wealth and security. Cattle squeezing efficiency will approach 100%. Commerce is war. It's wasteful, ugly, etc. If you have a job then you collaborate. Money grubbing cowardly foolish weakling that you are. Will drugs save us?
Janeway do shit after the series finalie!
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
This idea bothers me simply because sooner or later it leads to the possibility of revisionist history. I know this may sound paranoid, but think of this: in the 1920's & 30's some Germans who had been paying attention were trying to warn folks.
All right, this is nowhere near that dangerous a situation, but we still need to pay attention to this just to be certain that it is used responsibly.
Kez
It sometimes seems like there should be rights for dead people but once you start having rights for the dead, you run into huge problems. Not the least of which is the inability of people to waive those rights.
I mean it's already bad enough that copyright extends past a copyright holders death. I mean, how is that supposed to benefit the creator.
Many of us think that this is a big problem with giving corporations the same rights as an individual, that individuals have an expiry date wheras corporations can continue to monopolise parts of our shared cultures indefinitely (if the politicians keep extending copyright the way they do)
And anyway, in this case, the thing to remember is that the rights to the actors image is owned by the people with the rights to the image. Sure, the actor may have had a contract for recompense for use of that image but the image itself is not the property of the actor
Rich
Rich
And on the flip-side, I laughed my butt off when I saw Steven Segal do a noodle ad. I thought TV ads were way above him!
--
dman123 forever!
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
Along the same lines, what about those actors/actresses who are no longer able to make known their opinions. It seems somehow wrong to me to exploit the memory of dead actors and actresses in order to sell a product, when they were never consulted about supporting that product while they were still alive.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Don't the actors have any rights, even in death? Who is responsible for making sure the images of the dead aren't used inapproprately? Nothing would really stop some company from putting Marilyn Monroe and JFK in a porn together, which isn't cool at all if you're the family.
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But she'd have to order it as "Pizza, Personal Pan, hot."
Oh no, this would be such a bastardization! It would be horrible if Lexus© did this. Why would Lexus© want to mess with our programs? Just to hawk their exciting, impressive, luxury vehicles?
Perhaps this is really the new scheme- since customers won't watch commercials anymore, we'll make the commercials somehow newsworthy, including them in the print and broadcast news media. Best of all, those who are least likely to want a commercial in a show will be the ones who examine the in-news commercials most. Damn smart of them, too bad /.'s a pawn in it. (Of course, I stopped crediting this site with intelligence some time ago...)
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Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Which album would you like?
I Don't think there were any bad ones on their first disc (In the Garage and Holiday are two of my faves on that one).
I thought the whole of the second one was (arguably) the best 35 minutes of recorded music in 1996 (a surf/punk rock retelling of madam butterfly? totally inspired!).
I haven't picked up the latest one yet, but I expect it will live up to the legacy.
In response to the troll about having a windoze cd around, IMHO the weezer video is not a bad reason to keep it. Personally I have a windows partation for gaming and a couple of other M$ apps that I havn't given up yet (mostly for work related reasons). I'd expect I'm not the only one in this situation either. Instead of filling up landfills with near useless windows CDs, I'm glad people are finding SOME redeemable usage for them. Renew, Reuse, Recycle!
A few years ago I read an article (probably in Wired or another similar mag) that discussed this type of technology and some examples of use.
How weird will it be when there is a big Coke logo in the center of the World Cup championship match field? It won't be on the actual field, but it'll be there on the 'ole TV screen. Will we find it odd that your favorite friend on Must See TV is drinking whatever soda the syndication advertisers dictate? Coke on one channel, Pepsi on another? (personally I'd love to see someone drinking Shasta Orange!)
I guess I view televsion advertisments similar to a computer virus. They come up with new and effective ways to infect our thoughts and we come up with ways to avoid those new methods.
Just like not downloading something from the internet is a sure-fire way to avoid a virus, so is not watching TV or reading any magazines/newspapers (or leaving your house or looking outside) a sure-fire way to avoid advertisments. Unfortunately this method tends to leave you isolated and alone.
Personally, I like analyzing ads and attempting to figure out how they are trying to infect my thoughts. It's a fun hobby. ("And knowing is half the battle!")
The day will probably come when the Futurama inspired "Dream Advertisment" will come to pass. I just hope that they use cool colors when they do.
Thank you for pointing this out. When I submitted the story I doubted that anyone would even understand this was realy the most evil side effect of the move. It's one thing to use Jimi Hendrix songs in car spots. It's another to have him drinking a soda that didn't exist when he was alive.
Ascii artist &
I can remember an episode of Seinfeld where George was going on and on about bringing a bottle of Pepsi to some party instead of wine. Was I harmed by that in some way? No.
It is naive to assume that advertizers will not look for a way to get around those of us who fast forward through commercials. I would much rather have advertizing done this way, integrated into the content that I am watching, rather than having it break every 10-15 minutes to a block of commercials.
All charities in the U.S, by law, must make their books (income and expenses) available. If you're making a serious donation to any charity, I strongly recommend that you check them out.
On the other hand, I feel that almost all charities are open and honest and are truly dedicated to doing good. And I also strongly recommend that you volunteer your time and money for causes that you support.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
I'm all for product placement when it contributes to the REALISM of the program, and if it helps the people making the product, more power to them.
Face it, folks. There are products "placed" all around you every hour of every day. For it to be otherwise for our favorite characters on a TV program is unrealistic.
"You push too hard, and make those dreams, reality." - T'Pau
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
If it can show a different product in each market, smaller businesses could afford to have their products shown on popular TV shows. Not only would it be good for small businesses, but it would be fun to see local products used by famous people.
has been done before, obviously. major example: WKRP in Cincinnati was filmed in California, broadcast nationally, and had imported LaRosa's pizza boxes & Graeter's ice cream quarts flown from Cincinnati.
I don't see a problem with this. I'll just buy the advertised products, and pay for them with superimposed images of dollar bills.
What's the big deal?
Captain Janeway: Computer, I would like a personal pan pizza...
Computer: What would you like on your Tombstone?
Captain Janeway: Vulcan Mushrooms and Peperoni...
(Whirring noise)
Captain Janeway: Oooh... saussy...
Who wants Pork Chops?
Movie producers get money to make their movies (some of it) from brand placement. Wayne's World spoofed this wonderfully. This is not really different. So instead of the actor actually holding a coke, he's holding a virtual coke. Big deal. Most of the time we laugh at it in the movies because it is so obvious. I doubt that it will catch many people, most will notice it for what it is and disregard it.
Anyone remember the episode of the critic where they had Dukevision or something to that effect. They basically used digital technology to change the endings of movies so they would be better. They also had a part with the indian from One Flew Over the Cuccos Nest selling laundy detergent. Pretty funny stuff. Hopefully these new commercials won't try to take themselves too seriously. If they do I just can't see it working. I would probably buy cerel form Corpral Agarn though :)
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
As I recall, this seems like the first and perhaps only commercial I've seen where the person is made to directly endorse something.
Milinar
I miss my childhood in the '50s when brand identity was secure. I'd like my favorite shows to show my television buddies drinking only my brand of beer, washing with my brand of detergent, &tc. I'd gladly sacrifice privacy to let these good companies displace despised brands from my home theater. How soon can I have this?
Alternately, can I set my Tivo to only record shows with desired brand placements?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I wonder how they market it... 10 days or it's free? Is there a disclaimer for weather related launch delays? If the rocket explodes after takeoff, will they send you a new pizza? These are all important questions that need to be addressed before orbital pizza becomes a reality...
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Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
Discovery Channel and Frasier! I can tune in to Discovery anytime and enjoy a view of a snake biting that Australian dude in the nose.. or crocodile trying to bite of his leg.. that's educational and is well worth my hard-earned bucks. :)
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Yeah. I especially liked the episode when a snake bit him, and he, in the complete darkness with a flashlight was searching through a nature book trying to find that snake in it... at the end he goes: "Phew.. Good thing it is not posionous.."
http://dtum.livejournal.com
and it was a damn cool video(probably the only worthwile bits of code on my Win95 cd, god knows it's the only reason I keep that CD around). I'd only have a problem with it if they do it poorly. The Duke selling beer was a poor commercial, they tried to take him out of his time frame and put him into our world. But what Wheezer did was completely the opposite, they immersed themselves in the Happy Days time frame and didn't try to change the scenes/characters too much. As such it was a nice piece of nostalgia with a modern twist. But I don't think it will work if they follow the mindset that produced the "Duke selling Coors" commercial.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
"Wherever there is life, there will be Pizza Hut pizza," the Dallas-based pizza chain's chief marketing officer Randy Gier said in a statement. "If space tourism is going to be a reality, Pizza Hut pizza will make the trip even better."
I don't know if I could handle Pizza Hut pizza after experiencing about 7g worth of acceleration. Hell, I can barely stomach the stuff on earth with my ass comfortably in my recliner. God help us if Papa John's starts to deliver to orbit.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
I think that we will be getting more and more intrusive advertising. Banner ads are getting larger. Just look at ZDNet's advertising. On any article there is an ad for Compaq or IBM that takes up most of the page. This is just coming in on TV now. I don't have a solution, but god help the day that push webpages actually happen.
As Bob Dylan said back in 1993: "technology to wipe out truth is now available. not everybody can afford it but it's available. when the cost comes down look out!" p.s. happy 60th birthday, Bob!
If you've ever watched a Philadelphia Phillies game on the local channel you'll see digital ads for various companies placed on the outfield walls. Often times these ads cover existing ads or banners of some sort.
I can't wait for the day when Prominent Company A sues Prominent Company B because Company B paid to have Company A's paid advertising overwritten with their own ads during a rebroadcasting.
There were a few bloopers in the film though. I guess they could have done with this digital editing technique to switch the logos in all of the scenes.
And despite Pizza Hut having pretty low credibility over here, I don't think their reputation is anywhere near as bad as TBs (although saying that, if they continue to use They Might Be Giants songs without permission in their latest UK adverts, who knows...
Additionally, TV and (perhaps to a lesser extent) film wouldn't exist as artistic media if it weren't for capitalism. Were it not for the virtues of mass production and advertising, few people would be able to afford TVs in the first place. Of course, like anything, capitalism can be taken too far, and I agree with you that it would be a travesty to mar classic films with product placements. But to turn that into a blanket indictment of capitalism is just foolish -- it's like saying that the botched election count last November is a sign that we should abandon democracy and reinstate a monarchy.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Great idea, and in fact there's a cheesy boy band with a ready-made name that just begs for such educational enrichment. I mean, just imagine how much kids would learn about math if 98 Degrees were instead known as 1.7104 Radians!
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
In sports especially baseball they already do this. The next time you watch a baseball game on tv keep in mind that some of those ads on the fences and backstop don't really exist.
Ahh, A nice legally binding electronic signature...
eeeeeeyyyyy
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Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich.
you ever seen the ads for Classic TV (maybe its nick at nite)? When they take a clip from a classic show and dub over it to make it modern, and it makes no sense..kinda the same thing here.
This strikes me as the same sort of distortion of an artistic product as the colorizing of black and white movies a few years back. And it will probably be just as obvious. I can't wait for them to start digitally dubbing in dialog. I can just imagine it:
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. But if I did, I'd suggest that we go to see Dr. Marvin Monroe, Marital Counselor."
"We'll always have Paris where we can visit EuroDisney and have a great time with the family!"
Onorio Catenacci
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
Remember that commercial where Christopher Reeve stood up and walked around?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
"With any luck we'll see Capt. Janeway ask the food replicator for a meal, and a personal pan pizza will materialize."
With any luck we'll see Capt. Janeway ask the food replicator for a meal, and Seven of Nine's cat suit will digitally drop off!
That would be some freakin product placement!
When I was reading Tuesday's
- If the player is looking at several "things" during every second of his/her online experience and
- viewing all the items in your field of vision is worth 50 cents an hour from combined advertising, while
- "Ultima absorbs more than a hundred and sixty million man-hours."
- Ultima wastes $80,000,000 dollars a year by not advertising.
(To give this perspective, consider "Lord British is the handle of Richard Garriott, Origin's founder. Garriott sold the company to Electronic Arts, the computer-games giant, in 1992, for thirty million dollars". [From the same article].)Then, logically,
Further off-topic, mea culpa, I was piqued by the article's saying: Now I don't know about you -- but it seems to me that this means that people are willing to work for real-life free to spend time online making swords and stuff (in fact, they're actually paying to do so -- $10/month). Since the mininum wage is $5?/hour, don't you think Ultima could get this HUGE source of income if it had people doing information processing online, like proof-reading, or some medievally acceptable version of programming, and paying them nothing but items? Beats the hell out of making chairs, doesn't it? Just a thought.
Oh, and to prove I read the current article, I do know that it only refers to things on television:
I say: why not into Ultima? Just give them Medieval looks. (Actually it was the word "computer-generated" in the part I just quoted which led me to thinking back to U.O.).
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Slashdot update suggestion: have moderators rate "funny" and "to the topic" separately from Overall Worth, and be able to sort by them separately -- sometimes you want to see funny stuff, sometimes you don't. Same for "generally interesting" stuff, vs. "related to the article" stuff.
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Isn't this what was done in Stallone's Demolition Man, if I recall correctly all the refereces to Taco Bell was changed to Pizza Hut in the European versions, they even dubbed Stallones voice in one scene (really poor lipsync by the way). FYI I live in Sweden were movies are subtitled instead of dubbed.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
And, there's even a non-registration version of the story to be found here.
Somehow I doubt Janeway'll order a pizza tonight, since it's the series finale, but maybe if she does a dream sequence, she can order lots of branded food.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Subliminal messaging, only more obvious?
I might not notice products in a show, but I'd certainly notice it without really seeing it. Just another money making idea that will reduce the realism of television programs.
This is wholly different than a creative person agreeing to a "product placement" deal with a corporation. This is butchering something after it has been created. While we can all laugh at this being done to shows that we consider less-than-artistic, I don't want to see quality programs (MASH, ER, The Sopranos, or even The Simpsons) subjected to these heavy-handed edits.
Before any of you Young Republicans start spewing the 'capitalism is good' speech, art is better. Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, and Schindler's List won't be improved by digitally adding products to the scenes and their impact could be lessened on an entire generation.
Joanie could sell me a car any day.
Dancin Chachi
Why the hell do we need to have commercial - just have the advertisers and entertainment industry place there products into the setting of the actual show. This way we all would have more showtime. So when Fox Mulder reaches for a beer it will be a nice ice cold Bud he is drinking - and when anyone reaches for a smoke it will be a Marlboro..
That's one of the most convulted pieces of double-talk I've read since... yesterday. "Appropriate manner" my ass!
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
But under the DMCA, use of the food replicator would violate Pizza Hut's intellectual property rights to the recipe of Personal Pan Pizza.
Or maybe not, if it's used for liscensed, official marketing purposes.
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The American Dream went to hell in a handbasket when someone decided that "The Customer" was King, and the customer beli
On can only HOPE that the 'Where's the Beef' (tm) lady gets her long-deserved come-upance!
I have heard from several sources that the giant stars of yesteryear are going to be starring in full length movies very soon! There are 2 scheduled for release next year.... creepy. neilio
I am no more or less offended by such virtual product placements than I am by following a news link on /. just to find out that I have to give away personal information to register to read the free article.
Of course I can imagine a Nike logo appearing in a show set in the 1980's. Real Nike logos were around in the 80's. Were you?
Install MindGuard -- it works!
At what point is it a lie to do such a thing? At what point is it legally fraudulent? How can we make laws to protect consumers, without resorting to a "Ministry of Truth" in Washington that decides what reality is OK for people?
Since I have to watch the TV to advance past the commercials, and if I am scanning I have to pay particular attention so I can detect when a show starts back up, I am a "captive audience at high speed."
You know how the _Mad Magazine_ inside back cover had the folding page that produced another image when compressed?
They should build commercials that are *also* meant to be viewed in "time-folded space" (ie, FF). I guess there are a handful of factors that would affect if this works (what scan speed, the FF start point affects which frames would be viewed), but I wonder if this wouldn't become an option as equipment becomes more standardized...
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Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
It's really not that bad. Sure, many posts say that this intrusion is inevitable. As long as the quality of the show I am watching does not go down, then in show advertisements would not matter to me. Advertisers will cross traditional boundaries. This doesn't bother me. If they are too lazy to think of creative ways of introducing their product inside the show, then there is a problem. If the plot and genuine nature of the show remains intact, who cares?
on a side note, this probably won't be happening for a while, don't treat it like impending doom.
I talked about doing this years ago. However, I had no idea how to implement it. I also began to think that this was wrong. The only way I would support this would be if it meant no more commercials. I don't know how many people saw "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," but if they start advertising the way they did in that movie...TV is going to become a very sad thing.