Honestly, I have nothing worthwhile to tell you today. Getting out of bed made me want to shoot myself and I find it deeply annoying and offensive that I even have to think at the moment. So I'm drinking some nice chai and thinking about having Indian food for lunch with my baby and essentially - well - blahhhhhh.
Since I've got nothing else to say, I'd like to send you all a heads-up about a new and aggressive round of product-placement you and the people you love are about to be subject to. GM is struggling to make a comeback in its automaking division, so it's paid to star in the new Transformers movie (a bunch of new model cars are the 'in-the-closet' versions of the robot heroes).
Personally and generally speaking, I don't give a good goddamn about product placement, since it's less obtrusive than commercial interruptions or outdoor advertising and it means entertainment projects get sponsored (though I swear, no woman in the Italian immigrant community I belong to would ever drink all the goddamn Diet Coke Carmela Soprano does and it's starting to piss me off).
But this Transformers effort is directed at children, and aggressive subliminal advertising to children is just wrong. These kids might think GM cars are cool when they're old enough to buy one, and unless the world changes radically in the next ten years they won't be, they'll be penguin crap like always. So before you take a young relative to see Transformers, ask yourself if you really want to be ferried back and forth from the old folks home in 50 years by a twat driving a GM.
8 commenti:
Oh man, your last sentence really cracked me up!
I don't know that the kids will be paying that much attention to the car make - I didn't give a shit what kind of car the Duke boys were driving or Knight Rider etc...oh, wait. As an adult I did think it would be cool to own a Dodge Charger because that's what the General Lee was. Shit, I see what you mean...
Me too, Mel, me too. Sigh.
God bless the young twat taking time out to drive me to and from my old folks home. I hope I'm coming from a lovely cottage on a lake. I hope there are still lakes in 50 years. I hope there are still things that can be called lovely.
Thanks for the heads up. I love the insider info.
I bet there will be lakes and lovely things in 50 years. I feel good about it; the Thai food I had for lunch fixed my mopey defeatism.
Let's put it like this: John Howards' troggy Australian government has admitted global warming exists and something has to be done about it, and even submitted some plans about what to do about it - horrid, but a toehold for sensible people to dig into. And that cocksucker makes Harper look like Stalin's catamite. Change is going to come, whether some corporate and political forces want it to or not.
I still want the twat ferrying me around to have something prettier than a GM to do it in, though.
I really enjoyed your perspective on product placement in television, and the comback the GM is trying to make using this strategy.Product placement is a controversial topic that I have a great interest in.
I am writing a blog on product placement, sponsored content, and branded entertainmnet for my Audience Research class. Here is the link to my blog: http://iclagirl.blogspot.com/
I would appreciate any feedback you may have!
I have recently actually seen a film where the product placement was so overt that it actually became distracting from the plot... however, being the sieveforabrain I am, I can't remember which movie it was. Bah.
That said, one of my favourite movies of the past few years was Josie And The Pussycats - which made a huge point of taking the piss out of product placement - while still featuring HUGE, almost absurd amounts of it in the film. I know the overkill was there to prove a point, but it was quite funny on the "decrying witchcraft while selling your soul to the devil" front.
It's a medium advertisers have to be more careful with than they have been - I don't know if it's a question of risking audiences will think a show has sold out and therefore should not be watched (doubtful in this mercenary world), so much as if they do it too distractingly it may alienate viewers from the product for breaking their concentration.
It's a delicate form of advertising.
"decrying witchcraft while selling your soul to the devil" ... That's awesomely put.
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