First, a word of praise. The imagination and computerization
that goes into the creation of today’s commercials hawking skin creams or
peanuts is astounding. Despite my distaste for commercials generally, I’m often
mesmerized by the incredible productions involved. That being said…
According to Section 5 of the Commercial Television Industry
Code of Practice, there are limits on how much time may be spent for
commercials. Depending on the time of day, it ranges from 13 to 16 minutes per
hour. That’s one-quarter of the show. And who do you think pays for those very
expensive commercials? We do, in the price we pay for the advertised products.
Excuse me?
Frequently, when I select a column in the Internet edition
of the Washington Post, a video commercial would appear before the column does.
It either gives me the option to click onto an “X” in the upper right-hand
corner, thereby cancelling the commercial, or it informs me that the commercial
will end in 15-or-so seconds. I grit my teeth and wait to read the column.
Bad enough. But one morning, while reading a Post column, a
video commercial popped up in mid-sentence. For a split-second I thought a
virus had taken over. It’s one thing to have commercials at the top, on the
side, and sometimes right in the middle of the column, but to be reading when,
without warning, a video pops up is the last straw.
I suppose it’s legal, and that a lot of money is involved,
but while we tolerate commercials as the price we pay for watching “CSI” or
“Survivor,” the intrusiveness of commercials has gotten out of hand.
Now hear this
There is an act called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness
Mitigation Act — the CALM Act. This act ostensibly prohibits advertisers from
raising the decibel level of their ads higher than that of the program. This is
as useless as prohibition was.
First of all, decibel levels rise and fall with the type of
sound being delivered. An actress letting out a scream is far different than
the sound of two lovers whispering sweet nothings to one another. It’s the same
with commercials. I’m hard of hearing, so I watch TV with headphones. I don’t
know how many times I’ve had to take them off when a blaring commercial comes
on. The ad agencies that create those commercials know how to get your
attention, both with sound and content, even while staying within the rules of
the CALM act.
What’s this about?
Something strange has happened to commercials. Time was when
a commercial would introduce a product, tell you how good it is, and urge you
to buy it. They were straightforward: “Pepsi-Cola hits the spot, twelve full
ounces, that’s a lot…” Today the expensive scenarios of most commercials have
little or nothing to do with the product; their aim is to get you to remember
the product’s name, which is flashed on the screen at the end of the
commercial. Example: one of the many different GEICO commercials features a
hobo chicken. The chicken has left the farm and is seen first in a photograph
held by the farmer, and then aboard a train heading for who knows where.
Nothing to do with insurance. On TV these days a product’s logo is not
necessarily an abstract design, it’s a duck, a gecko — or a chicken.
Wanna buy a warplane?
Then there are a bunch of commericals with no product for
sale. Well, not the kinds of products on store shelves. “My mom works at GE,”
says the cute girl after screen images of airplane engines and other
contrivances made by GE. What’s this all about, I wondered. Why, of course,
invest in the company!
The airplane manufacturer Northrup-Grumman has come out with
a number of mysterious-looking commercials featuring sleek military aircraft,
with ominous percussive sound effects accompanied by imaginative lighting.
Anyone in the market for an enormous deadly airplane? I didn’t think so. Again,
investment is the aim.
This tirade is over. But, like Howard Beale in the film
“Network,” I’m mad as hell. Until there’s a successful movement against all
this nonsense, I guess I’ll have to take those tedious, barely comprehensible commercials
— plus two Aleves…or should I stay with six Tylenols?
Your right. Enough is enough! It's especially disgusting to watch a kiddie program with a child and be bombarded by a 10-minute string of garish, loud ads for junk. But there is a solution...a new generation of TV viewers is willing to pay for content on the tube without ads delivered by providers like Netflix.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting summary and analysis of the multitide of ads that we are subjected to day in and day out. I always wondered about the reason for the puff-pieces that describe, without a hint of modesty, the virtues of GE, Northrup-Grumman and other companies, many of whom I've never heard of or have any idea of what they actuallly produce or what services they perform (even after I've been subjected to their braggadocio). You say investment. Why subject the millions of us then, who have not the slightest interest, let alone the possibility, of taking such an action? Seems like slim pickings for such a large expenditure to me. I wonder if their stockholders know how their money is being spent? Or maybe that's the point. They want to show their investors that they're doing something worthy with their money.
ReplyDeleteOne last thing — you didn't take on the bombardment of commercials we're subjected to by the car manufacturers whose ads show us how to drive a car in such a way as to either wreck it or to kill any hapless pedestrians who might be nearby. And then there the ads everyone loves to hate: those peddling medicines that we must ask our doctors about. Those ads are enough to make your testicles fall off, suffer a heart attack, stroke or dimensia, go into kidney failure or break out in hives with a loss of hair.
There is also the issue of touting junk food as healthy or nutritional, which is my personal pet peeve. But in general, streaming seems to be the direction we are headed. I rarely see commercials anymore, unless I'm watching sports. Eventually., advertisers will have to get more clever about how they sell their products.
ReplyDelete