Television Commercials and the Decline of Western Civilisation, Part 1
Here’s a question I’ve been pondering for a while: How much do TV commercials say about the society that produces them? If the answer is “a lot” or in fact anything other than “none” or “very little”, I think we are doomed.
This was spurred a few months ago when a friend brought up in a conversation just how incredibly stupid some commercials are. Or rather, how stupid most of them are, but some almost go out of their way to flagrantly insult the viewer’s intelligence. Now, most of the time we consumers, or at least those of us who like to consider ourselves the more enlightened of the bunch, can simply tune out the inanity, or simply think “my, that’s an annoying ad” to the more egregious examples, and let it go at that. But sometimes these mental filters can simply not stand up to the full power of stupidity and one must confront what is behind these ads, and what are the implications for society. The fact is, as ridiculous as some of these ads are, as pointless as some of the products they advertise are, their existence must somehow be justified by the fact that they work. People out there, somewhere, are actually stimulated to go out and consume goods and service based on what they are seeing. And they are doing so in significant numbers.
If I may illustrate using a counterexample: Consider spam. Spam is of course, pure evil. It is more insidious than TV ads, and for the most part even more poorly thought out and advertising worse products. For the most part, the products or services promoted using spam are things that 99% of the population is not interested in, and the vast majority of the remainder probably realises that even if they were to purchase said good or service there is probably a better way to go about it than to respond to some unsolicited, anonymous, poorly spelled email. BUT... it works. If it didn't, it would not exist. The tiny fraction of people who respond to spam are enough to perpetuate it, because spam is cheap and easy to send out. Or conversely, because spam is cheap and easy to send out, only a very small fraction of people are required to perpetuate it. While I’m not happy those people exist, I’m at least reassured the number need not be very large.
Now, back to TV commercials. TV commercials are not spam. They are, to varying degrees, better produced, and may be selling more desireable products. But they are vastly more expensive, and more involved. Whereas one spammer can send out millions of emails at a cost of tiny fractions of a cent each, ads cost money to write, produce, and broadcast. Many many people must be involved. When I see a really bad ad, I think: Someone wrote this? And then someone approved it? And they found actors to perform it, and a director, and production crew and editors and distributors, all willingly going along with it, even presumably knowing how it would turn out, and then they paid hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of dollars to broadcast it so that viewers everywhere could be subjected to it, just so hopefully some of them would be convinced to go out and purchase the project advertised? The horror.
But as I said it must be justified. Enough people do go out and purchase the product. Only it is not a tiny fraction of society, as for spam. It must be many people. Enough to justify this massive undertaking. For whatever the amount spent on advertising, that can only come out of the revenues generated from sales, minus the actual costs of production, plus all other expenses and some allowance for profits. So whatever level of effort and expense is represented by an ad, no matter how incredibly stupid the advertisement and/or the product may be, this only represents a small fraction of revenues from said product. So whenever I see a particularly terrible ad for a terrible product, I think about what went into the ad, multiply it by a large amount, think about what that says about society, and start worrying a little bit more for our future.
Anyway I’m pretty sure I’ll have more thoughts on this, perhaps some specifics, hence the “Part 1” in the title. Don’t touch that dial.
This was spurred a few months ago when a friend brought up in a conversation just how incredibly stupid some commercials are. Or rather, how stupid most of them are, but some almost go out of their way to flagrantly insult the viewer’s intelligence. Now, most of the time we consumers, or at least those of us who like to consider ourselves the more enlightened of the bunch, can simply tune out the inanity, or simply think “my, that’s an annoying ad” to the more egregious examples, and let it go at that. But sometimes these mental filters can simply not stand up to the full power of stupidity and one must confront what is behind these ads, and what are the implications for society. The fact is, as ridiculous as some of these ads are, as pointless as some of the products they advertise are, their existence must somehow be justified by the fact that they work. People out there, somewhere, are actually stimulated to go out and consume goods and service based on what they are seeing. And they are doing so in significant numbers.
If I may illustrate using a counterexample: Consider spam. Spam is of course, pure evil. It is more insidious than TV ads, and for the most part even more poorly thought out and advertising worse products. For the most part, the products or services promoted using spam are things that 99% of the population is not interested in, and the vast majority of the remainder probably realises that even if they were to purchase said good or service there is probably a better way to go about it than to respond to some unsolicited, anonymous, poorly spelled email. BUT... it works. If it didn't, it would not exist. The tiny fraction of people who respond to spam are enough to perpetuate it, because spam is cheap and easy to send out. Or conversely, because spam is cheap and easy to send out, only a very small fraction of people are required to perpetuate it. While I’m not happy those people exist, I’m at least reassured the number need not be very large.
Now, back to TV commercials. TV commercials are not spam. They are, to varying degrees, better produced, and may be selling more desireable products. But they are vastly more expensive, and more involved. Whereas one spammer can send out millions of emails at a cost of tiny fractions of a cent each, ads cost money to write, produce, and broadcast. Many many people must be involved. When I see a really bad ad, I think: Someone wrote this? And then someone approved it? And they found actors to perform it, and a director, and production crew and editors and distributors, all willingly going along with it, even presumably knowing how it would turn out, and then they paid hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of dollars to broadcast it so that viewers everywhere could be subjected to it, just so hopefully some of them would be convinced to go out and purchase the project advertised? The horror.
But as I said it must be justified. Enough people do go out and purchase the product. Only it is not a tiny fraction of society, as for spam. It must be many people. Enough to justify this massive undertaking. For whatever the amount spent on advertising, that can only come out of the revenues generated from sales, minus the actual costs of production, plus all other expenses and some allowance for profits. So whatever level of effort and expense is represented by an ad, no matter how incredibly stupid the advertisement and/or the product may be, this only represents a small fraction of revenues from said product. So whenever I see a particularly terrible ad for a terrible product, I think about what went into the ad, multiply it by a large amount, think about what that says about society, and start worrying a little bit more for our future.
Anyway I’m pretty sure I’ll have more thoughts on this, perhaps some specifics, hence the “Part 1” in the title. Don’t touch that dial.
posted by Druski at 9:31 p.m.
1 Comments:
The Pepto Bismol adds.... with the line dancing. GAWD!
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