Slashdot Mirror
Pop-up Ads Coming to A TV Near You
Muddie writes "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that television execs and advertising agencies think product placement and the 30 second commercial spot are not getting the respect they deserves from us consumers, so in order to combat us ignoring them, there will be pop-up ads taking up the lower quarter of your screen during normal programming. Not only that, but the ads will run during relevant portions of the programming (see a guy shaving in the mirror, get a pop-up ad from a razor company). Do "They" think we just don't see enough advertising in a day? If you aren't busy throwing things through your television yet, you can read the article over here (with no pop-up ads)."
I'm glad I live in a country with advert-free TV.
I've been without a TV for about 8 years now and it's been really nice. Oh sure, I can't chuckle along with my coworkers about last night's Friends episode, but somehow I still get by. The best part is that after coming home from work I actually have to find something constructive to do with my time instead of wasting the next 5 hours watching sitcoms. Toss your TV. You'll like the results.
I can understand why advertisers are looking at doing this. I for one haven't watched a commercial in months since I've bought my TiVo. We got some new Dell PC's in the office a while back and somebody was joking around "Dude you're getting a Dell" and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about until he told me about the commercial :) Of course if it's during the programming I won't have much of a choice to watch it or not, that's just how the advertisers want it.
many people record shows and skip the commercials, having pop up ads would effectively force you to watch ads no matter what, as long as it was a part of the broadcast signal.
I bet I can think of a way around it.
*click*
Look! No ads!
Yeah, like we haven't been told about herbal viagra already...
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
With a larger screen, losing part of it to ad's won't seem like such a horrible deal to many.
I disagree. If I'm shelling out the bucks for a huge TV, I don't care what your excuse is, I want to watch programing on it. Now you're telling me I need to buy a 32 Inch TV to get the same effect as a 19 because the rest is ad space? Screw that.
It is a horrible deal. Even with a large TV. And what about tivo?
~Will
sig?
no biggie. and maybe that'll cut down on in-between commercials.
Don't be ridiculous. Can you honestly see a TV exec saying "We had $200 million in interstitial ad revenue in 2002, but since we've picked up an additional $80 million in pop-up ad revenue we can afford to accept $80 million less of interstitial advertising." Big business is after big money, and they don't care how hard they have to annoy consumers to get it. Your only option will be to turn off the TV or turn the channel.
The funny thing about all of this is that the advertisers feel that people don't give commercials the "respect and attention" that they think they deserve. That's because the consumers don't think that commercials are generally worthy of respect or attention. They started doing interstitial advertising and people started flipping channels because they don't want to watch ads. They increased the amount of interstitial advertising and people switch channels and stay longer or they buy a Tivo to filter it all out. I wonder why? Oh yeah, that's right. People don't like advertising.
So now they want to adopt the Internet's most annoying, least respected and most ignored form of advertising: the pop-up. That will get them the "respect and attention" that their products deserve. Nevermind that people have already learned to ignore the popup windows on their PCs, which should greatly ease the transitition to ignoring the popups in their TV programming.
The only real difference between the Internet pop-ups and TV popups is that the TV pop-ups have the potential to be much more annoying. The first time that they pop up and block something important (the text of a suicide note in that mystery show, the car spinning out during the Indy 500, the outfielder failing to catch the fly ball that results in the game-winning run, etc) there will be ten kinds of hell to pay from every direction. Do the advertising agencies honestly think that by cramming themselves down our throats we will become more enamored of advertising? No, we'll just start watching channels that don't advertise with popups, if we watch TV at all.
The sad thing about this is that it is truly unnecessary. Actual commercials in general have been getting better over the years. Many of them are funny, some even quite entertaining. Adcritic.com built a web site that's sole reason to exist was to provide commercials for download over the net, and they were crushed by the demand and folded. What that says to me is that even though the average commercial is derided and ignored, people will go out of their way to see entertaining advertising.
If ad agencies made their commercials more entertaining then I wouldn't mind watching them so much. Ideas like the product placements in Survivor work well. You see the bag of Doritos, you see 7 starving contestants competing for the bag of Doritos, and you see the winning contestant chowing through them like they were ambrosia. Next time you get the munchies you think of Doritos. Advertising via sponsorship seems to work well too, at least in auto racing. Race fans are some of the most loyal consumers in the world, so long as their product is sponsoring their favorite driver or team. When choosing between two roughly equivalent products, I always choose the one that sponsors auto racing (if there is one), even if it is slightly more expensive. It makes sense to support those companies that support your interests, and I'm not the only sports fan that thinks that way.
It's interesting that TNT claims to have already trialed such a pop-up system last year during a showing of "Father of the Bride II" and didn't receive any phone calls complaining. What kind of ratings they got for that showing? How many people switched channels when they started seeing the ads? Does TNT realize that 90% of lost customers don't say anything about being unhappy before switching to a competitor? Would there have been a more significant response had they tested these ads during a more popular show? Just how many people actually tune in to watch a second-rate sequel that's seven years old on a second-rate cable network?
I guess in summary, there is a way to advertise effectively. If someone is thinks that pop-ups are effective then they obviously haven't figured it out yet.
This is a brilliant piece that someone posted on slashdot some months ago ... honestly I do not remember the author's identity.
I've been targeted right out of the market.
I've had it. I can't take any more advertising. Television, radio, magazines, billboards, even the Internet for Christ's sake. Everywhere. Why do they keep targeting me? I never did anything to them. I don't even buy anything! They're wasting their time! Fast food makes me feel like shit, soft drinks make me dizzy, candy is disgusting, chips make my stomach hurt, I don't smoke, and any band that has ever been advertised anywhere sucks unequivocally. I eat tortillas and vegetables, I drink tap water. I ride my $40 bike for entertainment. I buy a new pair of Dickies at the army navy store every year and I get all my other clothes at Costco in 3-packs. My car works fine, I use my Internet connection for long distance, I've had the same boots for three years and re-sole them when they wear out. As far as booze goes, well, as long as it's wet...
So why do they keep attacking me? Why are they filling every square inch of every available space in my life? Above urinals, on concert tickets, underneath the ice at hockey games, on blimps, in video games, as props in movies, plugs in rap songs, on shitty Web Sites (No, I will not visit your motherfucking sponsor. If you're not in it for the love, and you can't figure out any better way to pay for your site than by slapping some ugly, corrupted banner across the top of your pathetic work, then fucking close up shop, kill yourself, and leave the Web to non-polluters). They'd advertise on the backs of my eyelids if they could get away with it, and I can't hack it anymore. They win. I lose. They succeeded. I failed. Like Brian Wilson, I just wasn't built for these times. I fold. Here are all my cards. Keep the pot, keep my ante, keep the goddamn jacket on the back of my chair for all I care, I can get another at Costco. I'll be out in the parking lot getting drunk and yelling at cute girls because I can no longer stand the taste of tentacles. Marketing has poisoned everything worthwhile under the sun, so I'm giving it all up. Everything.
But the way I figure it, there's no real loss. I've seen all of the episodes of the Simpsons 200 times each. Most of the good writing was done 100 years ago. I haven't listened to FM radio in years. I could play all my records beginning to end alphabetically and I'd be 76 years old when I got to the Zeni Geva. Online culture is a fucking yawn, only good for buying stuffed goats on Ebay and getting cracked copies of $1000 software. Movies always end up at the 99 cent video store across the street eventually, and you can fast forward through those commercials. My girlie's cute and the corner bar has Pabst on tap. What else matters?
True, by shutting myself off to everything, I'm probably limiting my future potential as a 'community building' or 'bleeding edge' cog in someone's nightmarish vision of Internet profitability, but fuck, a simple read through my writing should've cured that anyway (Note to potential employers: The bidding starts at $120,000 a year with full dental).
So I'm out. No more.
I just feel bad for those of you I'm leaving behind. You'll be wearing your Slave Labor Nikes, sweating under a Third World Vest, listening to Everqueer or Fratboy Slim, your hair styled stupidly with gasoline and aborted pig placentas, trying to choke down a Double Meat Fuck Splattered Cow Testicles On The Slaughterhouse Floor Pus Coagulated Lactacious Secretion Yellow Dye #2 Deluxe. Man, will you be looking dumb. It makes me want to cry. You poor, oversugared demographic you. You're filling your apartments, your bodies, and your minds with useless junk. You stagger under your own weight, throwing money in random directions until you collapse and die, buried by a bunch of people who you failed to create meaningful human bonds with, who forget about you on the way home from the funeral.
Maybe I'm just oversensitive, but I actually feel those fingers reaching out at me - cute little girl fingers, feeling at my face like a bind man, pulling at the loose threads all over my brain, trying to find a sensitive one, one that tweaks me. Desires to be successful, attractive to the opposite sex, spiritually satiated, or conversely, the fears of disease, dismemberment, of being outcast, of repressed homosexual desires. Herd mentality as dictated by herd mentality. A gas mask of soiled wool, worn in a steaming shower of chlorinated pond water. A lumbering culture created by profit motive, existing as window dressing to disguise the brutal cynicism of the architects, the brassy checks and balances of accountants bleating commands to the flunky tastemakers on the production line. The subversion of anything subverting. The conversion of something dangerous into something profitable. The gutting of the lion and the championing of the taxidermist. And the puffy vests, my god, the puffy vests....
I give it one more shot.
I hit that little "on" button, and immediately this little red dot appears on my forehead. I feel the barrel rising on the other side of the glass as some powersuited executive attempts to get me in his sights. His scope is the best money can buy, but my nausea and skittishness mark me as difficult prey. I make a sprawling leap over a pile of books, spilling a glass of wine and sending my cats scattering. The TV takes a shot at me. It misses, but after the smoke clears, there's a shimmering can of Pepsi on the coffee table, seductively held by a well manicured (but severed) hand. Then the Taco Bell dog is outside, scratching at my window, singing "That's Amore", the secret code that alerts Col. Sanders and Ronald McDonald to get their tumor inducing grease guns at the ready. "We have a resistor! Alert Cap'n Crunch and Mrs. Butterworth. Tell Hogan to pull that Subaru around!" And then, as the entire posse of 1-800-COLLECT goons attempt to joke their way through the front door, a helmeted uberyouth does a backflip on rollerblades against the window, almost crushing the Taco dog, thankfully getting tangled in the iron jungle of security bars designed for such a moment. The severed Pepsi hand launches itself across the room onto the stereo, turns it to HOTROCK 99.5 FM and starts dancing suggestively on the turntable. Warm, gooey songs ooze from the speakers, blurring the lines between commercial and product, product and art. The walls are running with honey, blood, and Gatorade. Limp Bizkit tries to sign me up for the Rap Metal MasterCard, but is outvolumed by a chorus of creepy NY Gap models, dead eyed and Children of the Damned style, singing nostalgic 80s songs with cool detachment, trying to sell me vests. Close inspection reveals UPC codes on the backs of their beautiful necks and a legion of bulimic girls behind them, mascara mixing with puke on ten thousand toilet bowls. Budweiser frogs are crawling out of the toilet bowls. A one-eyed, mutilated Asian girl holds a pair of new Levi's against the window with a thin, purple arm and starts screeching "It's a Small World After All" at the top of her lungs. Magic, The Old Navy dog, is sniffing butts with the Taco Bell dog, who had since bit the Asian girl on the leg and now yelling something about Gordidas. A waifish beauty suddenly appears on my bed, vying for my attention, trying to talk me into a new car, her hand slowly unbuttoning her blouse, batting her doe-ishly brown eyes, "C'mon Mark. It's only a test drive. No one ever has to know."
Realizing my one escape, I yank my battered wallet out of my back pocket and pull out a twenty dollar bill. The entire scene freezes. All eyes are transfixed to the damp, smelly piece of paper. Andrew Jackson snickers and you can almost smell the cannibalized Indian on his breath. A miraculous cross breeze flows through my apartment, and I let the money go. It catches an upward draft, a hot air thermal, and is gone out the window.
And then, something even stranger happens. The spokespeople, animals, models, body parts, and corporate whores all disappear in a anti-climactic 'puff' of yellow smoke, leaving a slight smell of perfumed intestine twisting through the air. My twenty freezes in mid flight about thirty feet above the ground. A helicopter drops out of the sky, and lowers a rope down to the cash. A man in a business suit slides down the rope, commando style, and captures the money in his mouth, gives a contemptuous snort, mumbling something like "sucker" under his breath. And then the helicopter is gone, vanishing somewhere behind the radio towers spiking the top of Queen Anne Hill. Everything is quiet again.
I didn't just turn that TV off. I unplugged the motherfucker.
You're right that there is some good stuff on TV, but I think that misses the point the original poster was making. I technically have a TV, but not cable so it's almost the same thing as far as I'm concerned. (HHOS) I think he was trying to say that if you miss a few episodes of the Simpsons, it will be ok.
My wife made a good point about this a while back. If I spend an hour or an evening watching TV, I can almost never remember what I did with that day. However if I work on the house, read something (even slashdot), workout, or go to a nice resturant, I remember it much more vividly. I'm not wonderful for watching very little TV, but I do get a heck of a lot more done. I think my life is more full when TV is an activity I choose rather than the default. YMMV.
Besides, when I watch I have a hard time turning it off, even if there is nothing on. Channel surfing is addictive.
Of course, most people don't have anything other to occupy their time these days anyway, so they might as well watch their programming in all of it's purely marketing glory.
Heh, did anyone else see Minority Report? What brilliant irony, a film with tons of stuff showing how scary, invasive, and annoying advertising could become, is a film laced with product placement from beginning to end...
How long till the moon has a Pepsi or a Nike logo staring down at all of us. We the people, we the consumers.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden