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Pop-up Ads Coming to A TV Near You
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Jul 15, 2002 06:45 PM
from the what-a-terrible-idea dept.
from the what-a-terrible-idea dept.
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)."
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Pop-up Ads Coming to A TV Near You
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Done... (Score:3, Informative)
marketed out of existence (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:marketed out of existence (Score:5, Informative)
Re:marketed out of existence (Score:5, Funny)
Guh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad I live in a country with advert-free TV [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Guh (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah - unfortunately TV is not FREE in the UK adverts or no adverts - can you believe we are expected to pay £107 a year for a TV license? I dont watch TV and so I dont have a license. This tiny detail doesnt stop them HOUNDING me - they just assume that I do watch it without a license (which I dont, I SOOO dont) and they automatically get granted search warrants to break into and search your property, however it is not illegal to merely OWN a TV set, just to "use TV receiving equipment to receive or record television broadcast services". Yes, this includes TV cards in computers.
Re:Guh (Score:5, Funny)
No way. I'll just tape a piece of cardboard over the lower part of the screen. I also have a 12-gauge "remote control," if the need arises.
Futurama said it best... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ads (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, how about Netflix [netflix.com]. Subscription TV starting at $20/mo; no ads, and a great movie selection. Plus, you only have to watch what you want to. ;)
I know it isn't exactly what you were asking for, but for the last few months my wife and I have been using Netflix almost as a replacement for broadcast TV. With the exception that it can be kind of difficult to get shows that are in heavy demand (the PBS Poirot mysteries for example), it works quite well that way. At least for our viewing habits .
What about the pr0n channels?! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: What about the pr0n channels?! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet I can think of a way around it.
*click*
Look! No ads!
This will cross the line me thinks (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted - nothing will keep me from watching West Wing and Law & Order - but beyond that when I just want to veg and watch TV - having popups in teh corner would be over the line for me - I'd do something else or watch a cable station.
I'd take brief ads screens during the pause in sat channel changes before I'd accept this type of advertising. Its too intrusive. I know the TV stations need to make money - but at some point ads will take over the show and I'll stop watching.
At some point overbearing ads will drive people away - I'm already ready to stop readnig NY Times because their ads pop up constantly, even using the Lizard.
Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:5, Funny)
I actually have to find something constructive to do with my time instead of wasting the next 5 hours watching sitcoms
What, like posting on Slashdot?
Yes you can live without TV (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Too bad for you (Score:3, Funny)
Now, if they start inserting pop-up ads in video games, I'm screwed.
(Product placement in video games is bad, but I can tolerate it. Actual ads are a different story ENTIRELY).
Re:Big screens and acceptance of popups (Score:4, Insightful)
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