That was probably the most annoying and brilliant move I have seen yet to combat people bypassing commercials. At the very beginning Chloe and Jimmy were sitting in a car, they stop talking, and in the background on the car radio you hear very clearly a commercial for the new Toyota Corolla and its 40mpg and other details. The commercial ends, and they start talking again.
Not only does that get the ad through to people with TIVO, and those who download it through bit torrent, but it will presumably be there permanently for paying consumers who buy the dvd set of this season.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Someone asked not too long ago where TV was going, with all the TIVO. This is where it's going. When regular commercials are just skipped over, the commercials are getting put right into the show. Companies pay to have their products on the show. I notice it more and more often now. Everything from the type of car the characters drive, to the clothes they wear, the fast food they eat, the plates they eat off of - it's all advertisements now.
And probably much more effective, because viewers don't skip through it and generally don't realize they're being sold to, they just think "Lorelai looked so cute, I've got to get jeans like those."
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
The TRUMAN SHOW is closer than we think.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Smallville did that to a greater degree last year, when Lois not only drove the car that was sponsoring the episode, but distracted a guard with the utter coolness of it so Cloe could sneak into a warehouse.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
My brother and I were joking about this kind of thing a couple of years ago. Basically it came down to us picturing what it would be like if they worked commercials into movies.
Naturally, we'd just watched Lord of the Rings, so we were picturing orcs just stopping a battle for a moment and asking things like "Have you been injured in a battle related accident? <insert lawyer here> can help!"
Or when the city is being seiged, have it pause a moment with "Does your home have full coverage insurance?"
Personally, while we were laughing about it, we did kind of think it would gradually get to be like that.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
That's what watching the biggest loser is sometimes like.
"You guys are really depressed. You've been crying your eyes out and you want to kill each other. You know what you need? Some Jell-O."
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
Even Heroes did something similar in this week's episode. Sure they didn't rattle off the features, but Hiro kept insisting on a certain type of car. That's the car sponsoring the show (you can see it for yourself if you read the webcomics on nbc.com, since each one opens with an ad for the car).
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Oh, I totally saw that. Over and over. It was like a big light going off: Commercial! Commercial!!
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
For me, the inner-commercial that bothers me is from I, Robot. The converse shoes thing. How did they apply to the movie at all?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Didn't particularly notice the examples mentioned. And I love it. 1) It adds an air of versimilitude by reflecting the commercial/brand saturation of the real world we live in, while continuing the action/acting of the show. 2) The advertiser doesn't crank up the volume to intolerable levels. Frankly I'd be too lazy to hit the mute switch or to engage in momentary channel surfing during commercials -- which I do nearly always nowadays -- except for the fact that the NOISE is hyper irritating.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
I'm with aspectre, the ads are done in such a way that it just flows in with the story. It's completely believable that Lois would try and show off of the coolness of her car or that somebody would talk about a brand they're loyal too. So long as these things stay subtle and don't get obnoxiously overt, I'm very happy with this trend.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
If they write it into the show well, and as a result skip out on the old style commercials, I'm fine with it.
If they make it clunky and obvious, as the radio ad sounds, or they just add these in on top of regular commercials, then a whole lot of networks are going to get nasty letters from me.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
The radio ad definintely did not flow. If anything they stopped talking because they thought they heard something, logically they would have then turned the radio down to.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
I loved laughing at the ads on Rockstar: Supernova. Every week, someone in the "interview" segments would find some way to promote the latest feature of their Verizon phone. I could tell it really hurt these rock-and-roll types to be selling out to the Man Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)