TiVo Causes Increase in Product Placement
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Dec 12, 2005 11:28 PM
from the i-do-what-they-do-on-the-tv dept.
from the i-do-what-they-do-on-the-tv dept.
ndansmith writes "Wired has got an article on how TiVo and other 'ad-skipping technologies' have caused an upsurge in product placements on network television shows. The 84% increase in product placements on TV over the last year has drawn protests from both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. An example from the article: 'In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season. They even had the characters go on a date to an early screening of the movie and bump into friends who had just viewed Geisha to tell them how good it was.' Readers may also remember a controversial Cisco Systems product placement on Fox's 24."
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TiVo Causes Increase in Product Placement
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And the winner is... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.namefuse.com/)
OK, so they were taking a shot at product placement in TV shows, but still, damn. I hope everyone at Williams Street got some free phones.
Re:And the winner is... (Score:4, Funny)
I laughed so hard the first time I saw that. I don't think I would commercial skip because I am afraid I will miss some of the better forms of comedy on television (reference the CITI identity theft service commercial series). Then again, I could skip the personal injury lawyer commercials and their darn jingles.
Re:Quite frankly, (Score:5, Insightful)
This might not be their biggest problem (TiVO). Networks seem to have tapped into this mentality that tries the patience of its viewers every step of the way. It's not just the commercials any more. Now it's having to endure visual clutter like the station ID logo, and these rediculous sliders that zip in and out at the bottom of the screen just after we've already been subject to four or more commercials.
I've found this so annoying in fact, that I've started to look at alternative forms of distraction. Podcasts have grown to fill that niche. They're great- they are personal, it's easy to connect with the producers, and they are/can be eductional and/or informative. Best of all, there are few if any commercials, and NO ANNOYING LOGOS OR SLIDERS. That's gets my vote hands down.
Re:Quite frankly, (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday December 02 2003, @06:03AM)
When I lived in the USA (British native for reference), I found your TV unbearable. Adverts popped up at random timings and without any kind of warning. Here in the UK, you can actually plan aroud the commercial breaks - it's a half-hour program, you get a few minutes after quarter of an hour. Just right to nip to the loo or make some tea.
I'm hoping that it doesn't spread like trailers on DVDs is starting to. I bought a DVD recently and up came trailers for other DVDs the company marketing people thought I might like. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for which company releases the next film I might be tempted to buy. Same applies to the two-minute piracy warning - I paid for the DVD. I am NOT their target audience.
Re:Quite frankly, (Score:5, Insightful)
That pisses me off, too. I think it's part of a secret plot to make pirated dvds actually more attractive (ignoring the price) than the real thing. I'm not sure how the movie industry expects to profit from this though.
Re:Quite frankly, (Score:5, Funny)
Where's the value added? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://kadin.sdf-us.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 16, @01:46PM)
Last season I started to watch the Shield on FX, after having watched the previous season on my computer by bittorrenting the episodes a day or two after they were released, and I found that the downloaded episodes made for a 1000% better TV-watching experience. No sliders, no moving graphics in the bottom of the screen, no station ID logos, and higher quality than my analog TV.
Someone should clue the local TV stations into a phrase: "value added." They have none. Right now they exist only because they have a monopoly on content (at least at the level of effort that most non-technical users are willing to expend). But as that monopoly breaks down and viewers start to get flooded with content from other places, they're going to be in real trouble.
I still watch a few TV shows, mostly as a social thing with friends, but if it weren't for the fact that we just enjoy getting together once a week and ordering pizza, I'd probably just cancel everything but my basic cable subscription and watch tv shows when they hit NetFlix.
Re:Quite frankly, (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://home.comcast.net/~steve_k/thermite.jpg)
I predict that within the next year we'll see stations running a constant advertising crawler. They'l probably shrink the size of the actual content area and fill the margins with advertising, much like CNN does with its stock ticker, weather, etc. Ha! Try to skip that! I further predict that within another year this practice will be commonplace and used on the majority of channels.
In fact, this may drive wide-screen format for shooting new shows. The shows will be shot in 16:9 and broadcast full-screen, with the ads taking up the remaining space. And no, those of you with wide-format TVs won't be able to just crop out the ads. Some shows will be broadcast with the content at the top of the screen and ads at the bottom. Some will have the content at the bottom and ads at the top. Some will have content in the middle and ads both top and bottom. And some will even flip the ad and content panes mid-show. If you want to see the shows ad-free you'll have to buy the DVDs. (Or, of course, download pirated copies that have already been cropped.)
Re:And the winner is... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.last.fm/user/smackhero/)
i think the ratio of truly funny commercials to complete crap ones is pretty low. wouldn't you rather be watching the actual programming that had you watching that channel in the first place?
it's kinda like, yea, once in a while you might see something entertaining while sitting in traffic, but do you really wanna sit in traffic all day long just so you can catch those rare moments?
Good or Bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://gmail.com/)
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at the price of hurting the actual show. I can buy DVDs and not worry about commercials, or just go get food during commercial breaks. Product placement doesn't give you those options.
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://webtrotter.com/blog)
If they start putting placements in the show to the point it's like the Truman Show, they'll lose much of the (large amount of) money I spend yearly when DVD release time comes out.
Unfortunately, it's not like they can edit that crap back out before the DVD release without affecting the show even more.
Placements are a lose lose. If you're paying for the DVD, you shouldn't have to pay for the commercials. Perhaps TiVo needs to kick back a little money to the networks somehow. I know I'd pay an extra couple bucks a month if it meant no ads for me. Especially if networks implemented something that signaled to the TiVo "ok, here's where the ads start.... here's where they end" so when you play the show back, it was completely ad-free, it would not only save space, but would be a nice perk for the customers.
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.isights.org/)
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even having a car in there where it doesn't matter which car it is, I don't mind them giving the car to the highest bidder, but having the actors say "nothing drives like a Ford!" while they're driving it makes me cringe. Basically as long as it's at the writers convenience it's good, but when it's at the advertisers convenience it's bad.
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://home.comcast.net/~steve_k/thermite.jpg)
I thought the product placement in Minority Report was extremely well done. It was kind of in-your-face, but it needed to be. It actually advanced the plot. I think avoiding product placement and using obviously fake brands would have detracted from the movie. "John Anderton, you look like you could use a Duff Lite!" doesn't have the same feel to it.
You couldn't get away with this in many movies, but once in a while it works.
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://hypocrite.org/)
Good AND bad. (Score:5, Funny)
Bad - Hemorroid cream product placement.
Re:Good AND bad. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good AND bad. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.google.com/)
I've heard it's quite relieving.
Re:Good AND bad. (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday April 11 2006, @02:44PM)
OK probably badly paraphrased, but it's funny when he says it
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.demaagd.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 27 2002, @06:53PM)
I will say I'm setting up a Myth system in part because of the ads, there are way too many and way too lame. Using tapes is getting annoying.
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
"In the future all restaurants are Taco Bell"
Re:Good or Bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://ekj.vestdata.no/)
Nothing for you to see here... (Score:4, Funny)
Nothing for you to see here. BROUGHT TO YOU BY CISCO SWITCHES AND NETWORKING APPLIANCES! Please move along.
Artistic integrity? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://matrophe.freeshell.org/nfd/)
From the article:
"some writers are putting up a fight, demanding more pay in exchange for scripting product plugs into their shows ."
So, in other words, it isn't like they are concerned about becoming shills...only that they aren't paid enough to be whores.
Porn (Score:5, Funny)
<i>"After giving head nothing gets the taste out of my mouth better then mentos, my mouth is fresh and im ready to do the double penetration shot"</i>
Re:Artistic integrity? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
As much as everyone likes to bash the writers, it doesn't strike me as that outrageous.
When the network starts collecting money so that the people who write the scripts will say certain things, the writers have to work harder to do their episodes and still meet the networks obligations.
And if the writing is sucky because they were busy working in product placement, they're the ones who get fired; not the guy who got the comission for landing the deal.
I must be soul-sucking enough to write the dreck that is on TV, knowing your bosses are making more money so you can be forced to write even more dreck with product-placement would be too much.
They're effectively now writing ad-copy as well as scripts.
Inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems kind of pathetic to do that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It seems kind of pathetic to do that. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.accordion.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday June 06 2006, @10:55PM)
Solutions (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.unanimocracy.com/about.html | Last Journal: Tuesday April 04 2006, @12:04PM)
The advertising community is, yet again, far behind. Tivo is so 2001. BitTorrent and the newer anonymous P2P apps take the problem a step farther.
With vidgeeks easily editing out commercials for P2P redistribution (this can be time consuming to be frame perfect), it is only a matter of time before they digitally smear out product placement. A little bit of work and you can nuke logos without the MTV blur.
What will advertisers do next?
My thought is that we'll see video and audio starting and stopping at different offsets. Imagine -- a scene ends with the audio ending but the video continuing. A character can walk off screen for entire seconds after they're finished talking. If Cisco paid to have the audio portion of the ad start before the video is over. P2P editors could nuke this audio.
The video could end before the audio, maybe bringing a logo in before a narration is finished. Still, the video portion could be edited to black.
Pop-up video advertising could be placed like A&E and Bravo do with TB show mentions. In fact, I believe we see more of these mentions to prep us for 3rd party pop-overs. Yet a vidgeek could humorously edit the pop-over to advertise their l33t skills.
So what is the answer?
DRM.
Real Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The real solution is so simple, it may be beyond the grasp of marketers: make advertisements worth watching.
It's simple. Why do I skip commercials? They're annoying, loud, repetitive, gaudy, mindless. I don't want to watch them, and the producer believes I won't be watching them (I wonder why?), so they scream and shout to get my attention.
So make a commercial that's funny, witty, beautiful. And don't play it every commercial break. Make something I want to see again, and instead of skipping it, I'll take advantage of the TiVo and watch it again.
Such a thing is possible: such commercials already exist. They've few and far between, but we've probably all seen at least one or two. It's possible. If the existing ad agencies can't come up with them, find new ones. I bet there are a thousand independent filmmakers out there who could come up with 30 second clips that fit this bill on half the budget they usually spend.
This is the real solution, one that doesn't involve literally forcing us to watch with DRM and legislation. Which is going to alienate people? Making something they desire, or making it illegal to avoid something they don't?
Re:Real Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://foobazco.org/)
You're approaching this from the wrong direction: making advertisements worth watching is an action to be undertaken by the advertisers and their customers. This presumes they are the people with the problem. They aren't; they're making plenty of money already; PVRs and other changes in the market are crimping their ability to make more money, but they're doing fine as it is. Being greedy isn't a "problem" for the greedy individual but rather a never-ending series of opportunities to make more money at your expense. Your comment assumes that finding one way to solidify or increase the revenue stream is sufficient but in fact the media companies are satisfied only when they exhaust all possible such schemes. So in fact the viewer is the one with the problem; without a PVR you have to watch more ads today than ever before, and even with a PVR you get less content than ever before. Either way, you're going to get more product placement as well, because even if the advertisers made "advertisements worth watching" and no one ever edited them out, you can bet that to sustain their revenue growth the advertising agencies and media companies will continue to increase the number of impressions they can sell per 30 minutes of airtime; having more effective advertisements just allows them to charge more, which is great, but they aren't getting their money's worth until every possible second of airtime is sold somehow to someone. The content is the worm, the ads are the hook, and you are the fish. No fisherman cares how good the worm is as long as it covers the hook well enough to tempt the fish. Fish seem willing to overlook a giant, flaming-orange hook so long as it contains the tiniest fragment of long-dead worm or worm substitute, and TV viewers, who live longer than fish and seem to develop a tolerance to "hooks", are no different. The media companies know this and that, as a fish, er, viewer, sucks.
So there are actually two solutions, one which is realistic and one which is not. The unrealistic solution calls for a contract made between viewers and content producers for a certain amount of ad-free content in exchange for a certain amount of money - the way cable TV was originally set up, in fact. This is unrealistic because, as happened with cable TV, the media companies, never satisfied with merely making a tidy profit, realised that you'll pay just as much for TV with ads as without, so they can actually make money both ways. So much for that. We're left with the REAL SOLUTION that actually works and is guaranteed not to require watching any kind of TV ad, ever, and as a side bonus penalises the greedy bastards who are forcing the issue: DON'T WATCH TELEVISION AT ALL. There's no law (yet) requiring you to consume what the media companies produce. The worm fragments are small, not especially tasty nor healthy, and in virtually all cases unattainable without being hooked anyway. You'll find after a few weeks of altered evening routine that you don't even miss them, and you'll do a boon for your own mind, the economy, and our civilisation's collective future just by not doing something. Why wait? You can solve your problem right now, without any help from anyone, and all you have to do is not do something that seems to be causing you a lot of grief anyway. It's easy, it's free, and it takes no time at all. What better solution could you seek?