The Extratextuals

A neat video that anyone interested in advertising and television should enjoy:

ads, viral videos ads, upfronts

I’m not the only one who thought the Super Bowl ads were pretty crappy this year – it seems to be a widely echoed opinion. That said, I’ve often disliked them. Ads are already showy and always verging on being hyper-annoying in their “hey, look at me”-ness, so the added expectations and hype around the Super Bowl usually drives them over the edge. If regular ads have bad stereotypes and stupid humor, Super Bowl ads frequently have horrific stereotypes and brain-numbingly stupid humor. Moreover, precisely because Super Bowl ads usually represent some form of new campaign, many of them tout a rebranding, and after watching 3 or 4 products or services insist that they’re completely different, when I know they’re the same products or services, each successive ad’s echoing of the same sentiment proves to be patronizing.

The best ads are great precisely because they rise out of an ad break of seemingly no consequence. Super Bowl ads come with the imprimatur of supposed brilliance, though, which means that the expectations are nearly always too high for them to meet.

Nevertheless, several ads clearly rose to the top or sunk to the bottom, and I thought I’d share my evaluations of these two categories.

The Ads I Liked

1. Coke: “Heist.” Nice CGI, and it works well alongside Coke’s brilliant GTA parody and their other Super Bowl offering, “Strangers,” and their excellent “Magic Factory” ad to align Coke with the magic make-believe of animation, videogames, and happy transformational experiences. The butterflies’ mock Coke bottle is a particularly nice touch.

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By now, you’ve likely heard that Jay Leno will be taking over a third of NBC primetime next year. Most of the reaction I’ve read is along the lines of David Bianculli’s, that this will be “good for business, bad for TV.” I disagree.

The “good for business” line looks at the relative cost of production. Jay himself costs a lot, but the show is dead cheap in Hollywood terms. The “good for business” line also counts on Jay being able to bring his Nielsen audience to NBC primetime. Bianculli adds that this helps NBC keep Jay (though at what price?). And Derek Kompare speculates that NBC could lock down an older audience rather than chasing a fickle younger one with various scripted options.

But, as I said, I’m not convinced. Why? More below …

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Just in case you want to add a Geico ad to your Thanksgiving holiday video, a new invention from two Stanford a.i guys promises to make YouTube a scary place:

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This poster for Harold and Kumar 2 is excellent. It marks a fairly rare occurrence of a poster that works at a conceptual level. Neil Patrick Harris’s cameo in the first movie was one of the more celebrated parts of the film, but I’d argue that this poster isn’t about advertising his inclusion in the sequel, nor does it necessarily imply that “NPH” will be seen on a unicorn in the film. Meanwhile, neither Harold nor Kumar is on the poster, nor any reference to the show’s plot (wherein the two are arrested on an airplane when an old woman thinks Kumar is a terrorist). Rather, the simple point is itself comically rich, suggesting that the sensibility behind the making of this film is the same that might find the notion of NPH on a unicorn amusing, or that might find the act of substituting NPH for Jesus by asking “What Would NPH Do?” entertaining. And they’ve really committed to the concept, too, with the blinding light, and NPH’s priceless look and seemingly unbuttoned shirt and jacket.

Of course, it has the luxury of being a sequel, so the mere words “Harold and Kumar” already tell viewers what to expect, but all the same, the promotional strategy here is arresting and deeply amusing. I saw the poster while going to see two films (two? See here for explanation) and I burst out laughing. Trailers for comedies should make one laugh, just as trailers for action films should excite one, but posters more often are left teasing the viewer, promising gratification later on. The poster for Harold and Kumar 2, though, delivers the goods upfront.

Compare, for instance, to the posters to the films I saw: Dan in Real Life (a lovely film) and We Own the Night (an okay film, though nothing special, save for a brilliant car chase in the pouring rain). More after the fold

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poster art, previews ads, Dan in Real Life, Harold and Kumar 2, movies, Neil Patrick Harris, posters, We Own the Night

Through much of the nineties, two television programs sustained me: The Simpsons and Seinfeld. Others came and went, but not only did those two shows consistently hold my interest, but their many repeats would too. One of my roommates would even record the evening reruns of Seinfeld while watching them, and watch them again first thing the next morning, and I’d often join him. So Jerry and Homer are close to me. I don’t spend as much time with them now as I used to, but I like to check in on them every once in a while, since they are old friends.

Recently, the Jerry Seinfeld and Simpsons franchises have been doing interesting transmedia jigs. Seinfeld’s Bee Movie is coming out on Friday, and television is all abuzz with cross-promotion: Seinfeld appeared on 30 Rock (and through that episode, he appeared on most other NBC shows too), he has an HP ad that refers to the movie, and he’s filmed a seemingly endless number of shorts that are filling ad breaks. He’s ubiquitous, so much so that I’m sure I’m missing about 453 other venues where he’s hawking his movie (I could’ve sworn the dude behind the counter at McDonalds looked familiar today), and in the time it takes me to type this, Seinfeld will have appeared in 58 more venues. The Simpsons meanwhile have a forthcoming video game, based on the film (so, yes, it’s the game of the film of the television show), with some ads on television, and a particularly innovative and fun official website. In case it’s not evident yet, I find the Seinfeld transmedia jig annoying, and the Simpsons one exemplary. More below the fold…

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ads, previews, stars ads, Bee Movie, computer games, franchises, NBC, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Simpsons Game, television, transmedia

Nielsen have been pretty active recently, with announcements, changes, and additions left, right, and center. I believe Ivan’s going to handle one of those possible changes/shakeups, so I’ll focus on three others.

Increase in the National TV Ratings Sample SizeThere’s the announcement that they’ll be tripling their TV ratings national sample size by 2011 (hence rising from 12,000 households with 35,000 people to 37,000 households with 100,000 people). Sam Ford over at the Convergence Culture Consortium blog discusses this, though more from me below.

Hey! NielsenThey also introduced a service called Hey! Nielsen, which is ostensibly a social networking and opinions site. CCC also beat us to the punch here, with a post from Eleanor Baird. She finds the site interesting in three ways, arguing that it signals:

• “a desire to work with fan groups and give them extra clout, something that I believe echoes a change in attitude in the industry as it tries to quantify things other than eyeballs to sell to advertisers”;
• “a move towards more diverse measurement from an online group”; and
• “an interesting move is that it is seeking to build a more direct, trusting relationship with an audience that probably has fought in the past to keep the shows they wanted on air because of low ratings”

Certainly, offering evidence of Baird’s first point, my quick browse through the site suggested a marked cult fan presence. Hey! Nielsen gives a score to shows that are being talked about, and the day I visited, Supernatural, Jericho, and Firefly easily topped the television scores.more below… Read more…

ads, ratings ads, Nielsen, ratings, social networking sites, surveillance, sweeps

Via Mediaweek, I recently found a survey on consumers’ attitudes towards advertising. Based on an online random survey of 966 Americans 18 years and older from Sept. 5-12, this study is both interesting and truly hilarious. A few highlights:

• Ad people have only marginally more public respect than national politicians and car salesmen, yet less than lawyers, a finding that causes the study’s author to bemoan negative media depictions of advertisers. Awwww. Do you appreciate the irony of an advertiser complaining about poor media depictions?
• One of the charming graphs suggests that 31% see ad people as a necessary evil, and 15% see them as a necessary good. By my math, that means 54% think they’re plain unnecessary, and as many as 85% think they’re evil.
• Another question asked which of the following terms best described their use and attitudes towards the media: “avoider,” “indifferent,” “grazer,” “committed,” or “compulsive.” I find the question interesting since it tells us the divisions the ad industry is making, and that they even think it’s useful to generalize about people’s overall media consumption.
• Only 24% claimed they outright resented advertising, with most simply claiming to ignore it.
• One of my two favorite tidbits comes from a question that asked people to agree or disagree with several statements, including “The Internet helps me make better product choices,” “The Internet has changed the way I shop,” and “I would love to have an ‘invisibility cloak’ sometimes.” I promise I’m not making that last one up. Where’d that come from?! How about “I wish I had a Nimbus 3000,” or “I would love to own a stovepipe hat and have my friends call me Honest Abe” while they’re at it? I’ve seen many silly non-sequiturs in surveys before, but this takes the cake.
• In that same question, though, interestingly for the rationale behind this blog’s focus on extratextuals, the two most agreed-upon statements were “Too many things are overhyped now – movies, products, politicians, and even news” (84% agreed or strongly agreed), and “Everything is a brand now – products; movies; places; people” (74% agreed or strongly disagreed). I’m uncomfortable with the grandpa tone there, though (using “now” to distance from the perfect “then”).
• And, to end with, my other favorite tidbit: respondents were asked whether they described themselves as a “pragmatist,” “idealist,” “skeptic,” “hedonist,” “cynic,” or “geek.” Since when did “geek” become a worldview and a life philosophy? (“Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person?” “Neither, I’m a geek”).

That said, if anyone thinks ads are all bad – if, in other words, you’re a “cynic,” not a “geek” – check out this wonderful, if banned in the US, ad.

ads ads, surveys