You’ll identify with this:
NOT so enjoyable was the process leading up to the movie. The pre-game, if you will, was unbearable…Now you’re getting full-featured commercials and highly produced movie shorts pitching products for minutes on end.
[snip]
Even the message to turn off your cell phones was an ad. There’s a giant 30 foot screen saying Shut Off Your Cell Phones. Everyone is looking at the screen. There is nowhere else to look. We get it. We’re supposed to turn off our phones. There’s still going to be that one moron that forgets, but we understand.
So why is the message up there not for 5 or 10 seconds, but 30 seconds or more? Why of course… it’s the glowing, pulsating AT&T logo at the bottom.
Really? That’s where their money is best spent? Do you think anyone, anywhere is signing up for a specific cell phone carrier based on seeing their logo on a Shut Off Your Phone movie promo?
How does that conversation go?
Marketing exec # 1 says: You know boss, we’ve heard from people in the field. Research shows buyers are really confused with our smart phones, they don’t know the difference between the Moto Q, the Blackjack, the Palm Centro, the 4 Blackberry models, or the Treo. We recommend allocating some marketing dollars to make up some collateral so people can easily read about the advantages of each model. What do you think?
Marketing exec # 2 says: No, I have a better idea. We don’t want to help people that are already in our store ready to buy and use our phones. Instead, lets pick a random place like a movie theatre, and put up our logo on the screen that tells everyone to TURN OFF THEIR PHONES. That would be a huge success.
Some people complain about the number of “real” movie trailers that they show, but that’s been well-documented, and most people enjoy those, so I’ll give them a pass. Ditto for paying $9 for a ginormous package of teeth-rotting gummi bears or bushel of popcorn and a 55 gallon drum of Pepsi. It’s been that way for years and the difference is, you have a choice. You can choose not eat or very easily snag a 99 cent bag of Twizzlers at the convenience store across the street.
But the number of commercials was relentless, with some even being shown twice. At times it was hard to distinguish between a commercial and a new trailer. That’s because it was a trailer. As a commercial. As opposed to the trailers that were trailers.
But to my surprise, the unwanted marketing experience transcended from the screen to the theater itself. I heard a voice in the aisle behind me, and turned to see a representative from the theater. She was making some kind of announcement, and I feared that we had lost air conditioning power.
[snip]
But no, the representative wasn’t informing us of any problems in the theater. Not content with making us sit through ads, they were now going to physically take our cash. Along with a handicapped male in an electric wheelchair, they proceeded to slowly pace the aisles – Sunday church style – asking for cash donations to the Boys and Girls Club.
[snip]
On TV, there is an understanding. You watch free TV, the content is subsidized by commercials. Conversely you can pay for HBO or Showtime and see no ads. Surf your favorite website for free? You’ll likely see some banner ads. Pay for Sirius radio? Most stations have no advertising.
Yes, there was a time when audiences were concerned that corporations were subliminally selling their products. There was a time when theatres were happy to distract you with word puzzles and trivia. That time is long gone. The theatres have crossed the line from distraction to all out infraction. They know they have you. And now you can’t miss it, and you can’t get away.
We don’t get to the movies much, but I love to go when I get the chance. Since we were too broke on our anniversary to do anything extravagant (like, say, go to a nice restaurant or get a spa treatment with a good massage) we opted for an inexpensive dinner at Carraba’s and a movie. With a dearth of choices, we went to see The Incredible Hulk, which, as comic-book fare goes, wasn’t half bad.
But having not been to a theater in several months, I was amazed at the number of commercials that had crept in, most of them as awful as the ones you get on television, running non-stop prior to the show. At least on TV, even if you don’t have the miracle of a DVR (I do, and never watch commercials) you get some of your show sprinkled amidst the commercials. But sitting in the theater for twenty minutes or so before the trailers even started, it was just a bombardment of consumerist nonsense.
And I paid $10 a ticket. For a matinee. That’s just ridiculous.
I always, ALWAYS, forget what I came to see during the trailers.
But it’s nice when the movie starts and I say, “Oh! I came to see this this? Great!”
I’m old enough to remember when the movies, which cost two bucks, had cartoons at the beginning.
Then the trailers came and everyone was really mad they were playing ads at us after we’d paid to get in. Then people started thinking the trailers were not ads, but then the actual ads started.
I remember the first time, I was shocked and angry and went to the ticket counter and demanded my money back and got into a row with the manager.
Now we just sit there, chewing our popcorn that cost us eight bucks.
People used to boo when the ads played.
My mum said that in the 50s she would spend fifty cents and spend the whole afternoon in the movies, which played features plus serials and news reels and other good stuff. It was also the only place in town with air conditioning, other than the library, which is a big consideration in London Ontario in August.
I’m working up the nerve to take the cousins to see Indiana Jones at the local megaplex, an experience I always find harrowing.