Commercials: Barometer of a society

Have you been watching TV lately?

I don't mean becoming one with your comfy couch binging on entire seasons of Game of Thrones.  No I'm talking about plain old TV, commercials and all.

In a world where just about everything is on Demand from your dinner to your favorite sitcom you probably haven't noticed the latest trends in advertising.  With the curated experience of services like Netflix and Amazon Instant video you'd be excused if you haven't seen a commercial in months.

The vast majority of viewers, however, aren't completely detached from the advertiser-driven TV experience.  That means there's still an audience to watch somebody's commercial.  

Regardless of how irrelevant they may be to you, commercials aren't created in a vacuum.  Whatever they're selling,  you can be sure somebody wants it.

Ok, so we're all used to ads from everything from cars we can't afford to phones we don't really need and food we really shouldn't be eating.  I don't care about those.  I'm more interested in the filler commercials.  The ones about things like prescription drugs and ambulance chasing attorneys.  The ones you see far more often.

In the past few years I've seen more commercials about one-off gambling casinos, lottery games, settlement funding and prescription drugs for every ill than anything else.  Even the ambulance chasers have upped their game from simple fender-bender litigation to multi-billion dollar payouts from big pharma.

That there are so many means the U.S. isn't as much about consumption anymore.  It's more about want.  We're underpaid, poorly fed and sick and we can't seem to find relief.

We can't count on much these days.  Careers are transient and so are people.  It seems the ground is ever shifting under our feet. 

They sell us the promise of stability, the righting of a wrong or just something to make us feel a little better about our situation.

Maybe that's the classic advertising formula, sell a belief instead of a product.

The trouble is, what they sell is a reflection of the world we live in.  A world where needs can only be met by indebtedness to monoliths that profit from continuing our suffering.

We want the lottery win, the big settlement, the freedom from worry and want.  That desire has become an industry in itself.

We are a country forever searching for the light at the end of the tunnel but the tunnel never ends.  The joke has long been that the light is an oncoming train.  That's wrong.  Were that the case at least there'd be some hope of an end but the light seems ever out of reach.

So am I making too much out of a bunch of stupid ads? 

I don't think so. 

If the "product" is security and freedom from want then it stands to reason that those are commodities we're sorely lacking.  I don't find it acceptable to be "sold" on a dream of self-sufficiency.  I shouldn't "need" a mason jar full of pills to live another day or settlement funding to catch up on my bills. 

Trading on fear is a dark negotiation. 

Not the mark of a healthy society.

Think about it...

The next step, another clue about TWIT's future

The house that Leo built may still stand but its foundation continues to erode.  An exodus of hosts,  ever increasing ads and unstable schedule all chip away at it.  Then there's the shameless self-promotion of swag but that much at least can be excused.

After all, what red-blooded tech geek wouldn't want a genuine, limited edition, TWIT branded T-shirt, Leo Bobble head or spoon cup.

Spoon cup?? 

Don't ask...

Hey, promotion is excusable even necessary, building a network around it, however,  is not.

Unless you're Home Shopping Network or QVC that is...

If you're not charging a subscription fee you're going to have ads unless you enjoy podcasting in a vacuum.  Somebody's got to pay the bills after all and a few seconds of sales pitch seem a fair trade for good content that's otherwise free.

Laporte has been adamant in the past that ads on TWIT would always be relevant to the network's tech focus.  Unfortunately, history has shown that assertion to ring increasingly hollow. 

Remember Ice.com?   They're an online jewelry retailer that had thousands of techies scratching their heads when they showed up as an advertiser on TWIT around Valentine's day 2011. From This Week in Tech to NFSW it was painful to watch hosts (including Laporte) try to make the topic of tennis bracelets  interesting to Iphone jail breakers.

Nobody would argue that Gazelle.com, lynda.com and proXPN didn't live up to Laporte's carefully curated advertising policy.  It was a mutually beneficial relationship that put willing eyes on relevant products. 

It seems that policy has been increasingly under assault, however,  as the network moves away from its traditional fan base.  Take a look at the newest members of the TWIT advertiser parade for proof...

ZipRecruiter, an online job posting service.  Great for stuffing job seeker's spam email boxes...

NatureBox, which for only $20 a month gets you into the fruit and nut club. 

Personal Capital, which might as well be Charles Schwab or any other investment firm with an online presence (meaning everybody)

Prosper, which is peer to peer lending or in other words the online equivalent to a hard money lender (otherwise known as a loan shark)

To be fair, it's just a few minutes annoyance out of otherwise good content except that what constitutes good content is also coming into question.

I'm not talking about Ham Nation or Floss Weekly.  Their relevant albeit narrow fan base is in sync with TWIT's original vision.

But what about a show about marketing?  

Advertisers are bad enough but a show about advertising?  

Never!

Except...

Coming soon to an Itunes playlist near you is TWIT's newest podcast...

Marketing Mavericks...

The pitch is this...

" Marketing Mavericks covers the intersection of marketing and tech. Each week, Tonya Hall interviews top marketing professionals to discuss case studies, communication strategies, and brand insights on social media, trends, and analytics."

Read that again, especially the part about interviewing "top marketing professionals."   Overflowing spam folders, popup ads and pre-rolls on Youtube videos all lead back to them.  The very antithesis of the TWIT mantra now finds a loving embrace.

One could hope that the TWIT chat rooms would rail against such an assault on their sensibilities but ever present (and at times draconian) moderators would quickly dismiss detractors.

So much for feedback driven content...

If there were any justice in the world such programming would find a short lifespan on the network but don't count on it.

It's far more likely that as TWIT content becomes a more advertiser friendly shade of beige, shows like Marketing Mavericks will become the norm.   Expand your audience and expand your reach.  The content becomes diluted but fortunes will rise.

At least that's the hope...

TWIT still has some good content but it's increasingly becoming more like a Netflix subscription.  That  contradicts  Laporte's stated wish for more live viewership of TWIT.   Fans of specific shows  are migrating to downloads over live broadcasts while devotees of former hosts leave the network entirely. 

Numbers don't lie and while TWIT stalwarts like This Week in Tech and Security now remain in the top 10 Tech podcasts on ITunes, new shows like The revamped Tech News Today and Tech News 2Nite are nowhere to be found.

All this kind of flies in the face of the new 24/7 news mantra doesn't it?  

Not to worry, everybody just accepts irrelevant content as a fact of life these days...

After all, look how well it's worked for Facebook!  Except that  even Facebook has seen a decline in new eyeballs as its focus on ad revenue has increasingly invaded the privacy of its user base.  When the novelty wore off they began to trade on their users instead of their users content.   A strategy that's led them to a  bizarre move to Virtual Reality.

That's left onlookers scratching their heads...hmm...sound familiar?

Facebook is all about the money and its reputation not to mention its fortunes have increasingly suffered because of it. 

There's a lesson in there somewhere...

Advertising to your affliction

Commercials annoy me.

"Yeah so what", you're likely saying to yourself right now...

If you have time on your hands like I do, you get to see a lot of ads pitching everything from luxury automobiles to breakfast cereal.  Of course the later the hour the more egregious the commercials become. 

Male enhancement and impotence cures show up the most frequently followed closely by well dressed lawyers pitching resolution via litigation.

All of those are the standard fare.  Even those products that promise to rectify men's...shortcomings. 

Most disgusting of all, however, are the ads from the pharmaceutical companies.  Regardless of how you feel about modern medicine, hawking prescription drugs like feminine hygiene products is something just short of criminal. 

"Ask your doctor" and "You don't have to suffer anymore" are common pitches.  Since when is it acceptable to create a demand for a controlled substance?  Is it wise to blithely wander into your doctor's office requesting medication without being sure of the affliction?  The commercials would make you think so.

How arrogant is that? The pharmaceuticals industry does the diagnosis making your doctor just another middleman.  I'd hope that rampant capitalism hasn't done the medical profession what it's done to our eating habits but I wouldn't hold your breath.  The practice of kickbacks and promotions given to physicians to favor one treatment option over another isn't as rare as we'd like it to be. 

With the advent of the Internet it seems self-diagnosis with a website as attending physician  has turned us all into hypochondriacs.  Every pain or discomfort is sure to have a miracle pill and all we have to do is make an appointment and ask for it.

Of course all the ads mention, "Ask your Doctor". 

Why?

If my doctor knows my physical condition and I don't have any medical training shouldn't he be the one prescribing treatments?  Who cares what a commercial says?  Why is it so important that I be aware of the names of prescription drugs and why do the drug companies feel the need to give them catchy names? 

So what's the point? 

Why does a company that makes drugs have a retail profit motive?  Need should dictate sales in medicine, not the other way around.  Commercials are explicitly designed to create a desire for a product.  In the case of prescription drugs that's a potentially unhealthy goal to say the least.

It's disgusting and highlights one of the primary flaws with the healthcare industry in the United States.  Personally, I don't believe healing should have a profit motive.  When you corrupt healthcare with greed both health and care are compromised.  There is no profit without sales and the ultimate goal of the salesman is to sell as much product as they can.  It's a goal inconsistent with medicine. 

Medicine should be more like the Red Cross than General Motors.  After all GM may charge you for antenna wax but the Red Cross will never charge you for a cot and a blanket when you need one. 

The worst part comes when we see our friends in the legal industry show up on late night TV again.  This time, however, it's not an auto accident or denied disability claim.  It's a class action against the pharmaceutical companies for injuries caused by their wares. 

Medicine isn't M&M's and shouldn't be marketed as such.  Pharmaceutical companies rush products to market often with inadequate testing and lax safeguards.  Competition may be the core of capitalism but it can be lethal to the unlucky patient receiving a recalled prescription.  Profit motives in business is fine, profit motives in healthcare at any level is a perversion.

Politics as Product

Article first published as Politics as Product on Technorati.

Never has there been such a splendid example that we as a society are severely afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder.  This flavor of ADD  is far from the inattentive child nervously fidgeting in his classroom, however.  

No, this is an affliction of the first world dominated by the churn of  consumerism.   It expresses itself in everything from fad to fashion and increasingly to critical thinking as well.

We in the first world have become so conditioned to reacting to a marketing message that we require no further information to make a decision.  We make the choice based on the promotion we most easily identify with.  No further deliberation is entertained. 

We've come to expect all of our information to be packaged in this way.  Politics enjoy no immunity.

Our impatience is reflected in the flood of campaign ads that have plagued our airwaves for the past year.  Probably the most obvious example is the current U.S. presidential race.  To date, both candidates for president have raised over 2 Billion dollars for their campaigns with approximately 1.5 billion of that spent thus far. 

Half truths, errors of omission and inflated context are the tools of political persuasion and they easily translate to the world of marketing.  Politics promotes the image by obscuring the product. 

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We choose our leaders with less care than our favorite sports team.  That's by design and the reason why political positions are largely parroted from political propaganda.  Politicians know voters have a low tolerance for long-winded technical arguments.  Instead they choose a popular position with their base and relentlessly repeat the same message regardless of its veracity.

Remember the Go-Daddy commercials?  In 30 seconds we knew who they were but only because we were constantly exposed to scantily clad models that appealed to a core demographic.   How many of us tried them based on a subconscious reaction to those ads instead of their reputation?

It works just as well for politics as it does for web hosting.   Think about where you get your political news.  Is it C-Span or are you more interested in the packaged offerings of Fox News or MSNBC?

Let's look at a current hot button political issue as an example...

Is it really the fault of a sitting president that the worst economic downturn since the depression of 1929 is still affecting the economy?

It is if you ignore the boring technical argument that it took a decade and a world war to bring the U.S. out of the great depression.   

Unfortunately, our short attention spans won't allow the retort.  We crave instant gratification and sway toward the product that promises it.  Ironically, If challenged we frequently justify our position based on that same marketing construct.  It's circular logic which dovetails nicely with our distaste for depth.

Perhaps it's time to examine how informed we really are.