Slashdot Mirror
You Look Like You Need a Guinness
prestidigital writes "This is a great fictional advertisement (high bandwidth) for Guinness. I say "fictional" because it is from the movie Minority Report. You may recall that Steven Spielberg is known for heavy branding in movies ala the opening scenes from Back to the Future (Burger King and Pepsi plastered all over). Well, apparently he has taken it a step further by weaving it into the very fabric of the plot in Minority Report. Cool ads if you can afford to wait for them. Lexus is good."
I don't know about anyone else.. But personally, I'd hate having an advertisement call me by name. Or advertisements that scan my eyes, and track me.
How about walking into a store, and having a big ad greet you? I don't think so.
Anyone agree?
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
If advertising is really about 'informing' the public to make 'rational' decisions, then why do advertises need to:
1) Employ psychologists who don't have an ounce of ethics in them
2) Have music in their adverts
3) Advertise over and over again when we all already know about their product
4) Spend double-digit percentages of their company's money on advertising
5) Have little in the way of actual information in their adverts, and instead just try and sell an image
The reality is, people are ignorant and highly controllable. Society is a socio-economic machine; there is no rationality nor any real understanding of how it works. Each individual mindlessly functions in relation to the little corner which they face on a day to day basis, and will decieve themselves into accepting and doing whatever they're tricked or pushed into thinking will make them personally more secure.
"Microsoft". Need I say more.
(Fucking close to water)
HTTP/1.1 400
You can already see that this kind of advertising is soon to come. Ya get hundreds of email spam with your name on it and you get tons of phone calls a day congradulating YOU for being accepted for a new low rate card. How many of you agree that if not the eyes being scanned, there is at least this huge war for the eye balls at every website you go to. Remember those obnoxious flash adds, flashing adds, adds that run all over the page you are trying to read, and not to mention the ones with audio. I think there is a line that consumers are going to put up with. We have been pounded and proded by product placement in every single medium we use, and there is a point where you start to loose customers who get pissed off with this invasion of sanity. Hopefully people will speak up before the ads in this movie become a reality otherwise I am going to start wearing mirror sunglasses.
Well I tried to watch the ad. It was there on my desktop. It starts off with a Guinness and some birds flying around in the top or something. Then, the screen goes all digitized and the soundtrack sounds like a modem trying to connect. Then, Windows tells me that QuickTime has caused a fatal error and must close.
All this because Mozilla is still downloading the file while I tried to watch it. Maybe I need to un-cap my cable modem. Or turn off Kazaa. Or just take all the pr0n out of my Kazaa folder, that seems to be over half of the traffic.
I wish I were drinking a Guinness right now, but Fat Tire Amber ain't too bad.'
Whoo Hoo! I got the Score +1 Bonus check box!
I've had 3 Guinesses this morning in the same time it took that clip to load. And that that includes settle time. ;->
Except of course that Back to the Future was co-written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and it was just Spielberg's production company (Amblin).
I don't want just ANY Lexus now...I want the one in the movie. How about commenting on the cross promotion prevelant. In this month's Popular science is an article about that Lexus that Mr. Anderton drives around in. How about commenting on that: advertising disguised as news?
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Going into the store with you significant other...
"Ah! Joe Johansen! Good to see you again! We just received a new batch of KY in butterscotch, your favorite flavor, according the Basking Robbins!
We know you normally buy KY down at Big Al's Porn Shoppe on 32nd, but this store is 4 blocks closer to your home, and we know how awkward it is to get those 50 gallon drums home on the public slideway! Why not have one of our friendly clerks help you out to your car with one of the store's hand-trucks? Remember, we provide free curb service, where Big Al's doesn't!
How is Millie, your Yak, by the way? Has the infection she had responded to the Penicillin you purchased two weeks ago from Bob's Veterinary Supply? Is she still down in U-Store-It Storage Unit #15? We have a co-marketing agreement with U-Store-It, where if you buy from us today, you will get 5% off your next month's rent!
..."
[and on and on...]
Uh, no thank you!
what the fuck - lexus sucks dogs farts. beemers are the only way to spend serious money. fuck commercials, fuck adverts, fuck capitalism, eat the rich, fuck their children, die, die, die!
I personally LIKE it when a movie set in our time period and our world uses branding on its set. Which one is more believable "Mom, I'm going down to the drugstore to buy a Super-Duper-Cola" or "Mom, I'm going down to the drugstore to buy a Coke"? Using fake brands in movies breaks my suspension of disbelief and annoys me. Same goes for video games.
$45 per U Colocation Special
Reebok. An ad shows clothing that changes color as runners exert themselves more vigorously. Consumers can program their clothing with the latest fashions by downloading directly from Nike.
If PKD were still alive he would be laughing his ass off at the product placements in this movie; not only are the ads portrayed as he envisioned, the moviemakers actually used the techniques being portrayed to help pay for the movie portraying them.
On second viewing I also have to say that the "not too futuristic future" is more different from ours than it first appears. Every flat surface in the movie's public space is a monitor showing ads. Even the cereal box! (That was soooo Philip K. Dick.) While The Gap might not be around in 2050, you can rest assured some other business serving the same niche will be; and it and the fashions within will be as unremarkable to the people of 2050 as the Gap and its product are to us in 2002.
And you have to really wonder whether the rest of the movie after Anderton is haloed is just a fantasy (a la Total Recall) or if it really happened...
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
They weren't high-resolution holograms with customized messages, but it still had the feeling of being smothered by commercials that I felt in Minority Report. I enjoyed the actual plot of the movie, but the deja vu of overactive commercials gave me a laugh.
This
There is a reputed Blade Runner Curse, referring to a number of brands given prominent display in Blade Runner which fell victim to hard financial times during the 80's, with the exception of Coca-Cola. Brands such as Atari and Pan Am, which were featured quite prominently in ads on the sides of buildings lost a tremendous amount business, to the point of collapse (although I was shocked last week to see the Atari brand on my NWN box). It wouldn't surprise me, then, to see a number of companies shown in Minority Report to collapse before 2054, even currently viable corporate behemoths. I would like to think that their inclusion in a speculative illustration of dystopian coporate intrusion would be the "real reason" they collapsed, and that PKD somehow had a part in it, laughing at the irony of it all.
Free Mac Mini
Of course, there's no such thing as bad publicity. And the hero was usually blandly accepting of the adverts, providing a role model for the consumer masses to follow. The only time a commercial really angered him- when he threw an overly loud cereal box across the room- the brand name was blatantly fake.
When I saw this movie, the large amount of blatant product placements was sickening.
There were others not mentioned in the article...
Nokia had a huge spot, with their logo placed on every electronic device for an entire scene.
Burger king is also a whore, with their logo being well within plain view during a mall scene.
The first ad to catch my eye, was Aquafina. I guess they're still packaging aquafina water in 2054 with the same package design and logo.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
If you look at:
the DEMOLITION MAN (1993) quote:
--------
Lenina Huxley: [T]aco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars.
John Spartan: So?
Lenina Huxley: So, now all restaurants are Taco Bell.
--------
and "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" (1982) key scene where the film's main human character, 9-year-old Elliott, lured E.T. of the woods with Reese's Pieces
you'll see it's been around for a while.
Walking into a bookstore:
But, it might be neat to have tailored banner ads online. I mean, I never want to go hunting or fishing, so don't show me anything outdoorsy, but would like to see something regarding computer programming, but not games.
Click here or here.
There are also other intents of advertising, including the occasional rational decision type... check on trade journal and you'll see a lot of ads with a lot of real informational content. Image is, of course, another popular objective (Pepsi comes to mind).
Miko O'Sullivan
Personally, I liked the approach in "Repo Man" - they couldn't get any product placement $, so all products in the film were given generic labels: for example, "BEER".
Freedom: "I won't!"
Spielberg was only a producer on that movie. Zemeckis directed it.
"And like that
"It looks like you're writing a letter! Would you like me to go to staples.com and buy you more stationary with your ever-so-special pr0n on it?"
Look ma! Advertisements seemlessly woven into movies! This really is News for Nerds, Stuff that matters!! Slow news day, Michael?
Just so it isn't totally off-topic, seen the new singular wireless commercials? Shamu? MiB2 worms? I think they're opening up a new trend in cross brand commercialization... Surely I can submit that as a story and it will get accepted. Nah...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
That's not to say they don't have or use their knowledge of you, they've just found that people like to maintain their illusions of privacy.
Miko O'Sullivan
I can't remember what PKH short story it was in--I thought it was a story included in the Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford--but it included a depiction of advertisements of the future, beamed behind into your eye on spaceflights so that even when you closed them, the advertisement was all you could see. If it isn't content that is nothing more than cleverly dressed adverts, it will be adverts that you are strapped down to watch.
Destroy your television now, while you still can! It is trying to control your behaviour! BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Man, I forgot how much I liked PKD's works. Perfect reading for the fanatic, paranoid, 20-something, college-student, experimenting things they shouldn't be, slashdot demographic. Should be popular with all the wierdo's around here.
This sig is false.
I seem to be in the minority (haha) here... but I like product placement in movies as was done in Minority report. I also liked the placement of Atari etc in blade runner. I think that the placement of ads as was done in Minority Report not only gives us an interesting view of the future, but gives people from our future a glimpse into our views of the future (got it?).
Even worse, the export version of the film had a different restaurant chain, because Taco Bell is US only.
"We need personalized ads, like Minority Report. And we need them now. I want ads like that in our malls by next year!"
Spielberg didn't direct Back to the Future. Roger Zemeckis did. Spielberg was executive producer, which means "person who endorses the production of the movie and has high-level input but otherwise does nothing."
How about commenting on that: advertising disguised as news?
Are you even aware how completely self-referential you're being?
And if so, shouldn't it be retroactive?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Cool ads if you can afford to wait for them.
Or if you can afford the $7 to see the movie..
The Middle Eastern countries I can understand, but France? Denmark? Sweden? What's the problem there? And does anyone seriously think that residents of those countries are going to heed some stupid "thou shalt not" like this? Do authorities in European nations actually attempt to enforce whatever laws are making this notice necessary?
It looks like you're writing a suicide note! Click on the method you're planning to use: [gun] [jump] [drown] [other] [etc]
One of the funniest damn things I've seen in awhile.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
You may be at +5 funny, but knowing some scummy marketers in my lifetime, I'd moderate this as +5 "frighteningly close to reality".
the AC
Butterscotch is not my favourite flavour
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Science fiction has always meant to comment on the present more than predict the future. Pretty much ALL science fiction becomes dated, but that doesn't make them bad. Minority Report is VERY relevant to our world today, and that is what it's trying to be.
Maybe not. Face recognition technology is probably good enough for advertising.
I found it strange that Washington D.C. of all places ... one well known for its large black population and its folks from other races would have 99% white people in it. Take a look for yourself, around the pool, in the mall, in the cars, in the jail, everywhere public ... white people.
Go ahead and make up scenarios for yourself to explain this phenomenon.
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
...and "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" (1982) key scene where the film's main human character, 9-year-old Elliott, lured E.T. of the woods with Reese's Pieces...
According to legend, the scene was originally suppose to use M&M's. However, Mars, the candy's manufacturer, refused to allow their name to be used -- and so Hershey's Reese's Pieces ended up being featured instead. According to the link above, sales of Reese's Pieces increased something like 65-85% afterwards.
> Was it another 'real-life' chain, or a made up one?
:-)
It was a chain owned by the same company that owns Taco Bell, I remember that much from the stories at the time (about the logos being digitally replaced). I only saw the movie on TV, and that still had "Taco Bell".
One quick Google later: http://www.yum.com/ says Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (and KFC) are owned by the same group ("Yum! Brands", formerly Tricon Global Restaurants). Pizza Hut being in Demolition Man rings a bell. And looking a bit deeper, both Taco Bell and Pizza Hut were owned by PepsiCo, which also sounds familiar.
http://uk.imdb.com/Trivia?0106697 confirms it. I should have looked there in the first place. In fact _you_ should have looked there in the first place
rant