Super Bowl and other TV offerings
This weekend was the Superbowl. Superbowl 41 (there had been 40 other just like it) was an advertisers dream. Jen & I were invited to a superbowl party, and so we took the girls with us and went. We got there at 3pm and the game kicked off at 3.24pm - the reason for the odd time TV. We left at 4.20 by which time a quarter of the game was over, and we had seen about 450 adverts.
The game itself passed me by - I have already mentioned my dislike for the game, and I think the Bears won but it could have been the Racoons or even the Beavers. Why do they have those silly names? I notice that rugby union is starting to go the same way. I am all for traditional nicknames but these manufactured ones like the Sale Sharks?
So Monday swung around and at work the talk was all about the adverts. Which one's were funny, which one's were sweet and which one's bombed. No one really mentioned the game. Even TV and radio shows were focused on the ads and not the game itself. As my friend Monge says somewhere else on this blog, "a capitalist's dream".
TV here is full of adverts. And they are mostly terrible. None of the European sex, subtlety or stupidity, rather very old school adverts. For example car adverts just show the car, the car and nothing but the car. Local businesses always have to have the owner in the ad, to build the common touch link. Few are funny, all are pretty obvious, and just ram the product down your throat, after all they don't want you to think about it just buy it.
Product placement is also huge in shows, and none comes as big as Simon Cowell's coke glass that sits in front of him during American Idol. Coke have paid a colossal sum to have it sit there, and as it is not see through there is no way of knowing what Simon is drinking (although my guess is the devil's sperm). I am not a fan of American Idol or Pop Idol, but Jen likes seeing people humiliated so I have caught bits and pieces of it. Last night's was very funny. Not only did some woman murder Black Velvet by singing the wrong tune and not knowing the words, but a rejected contestants family were so angry they started making threats to Simon. They didn't know where he was from and so the presenter of the show (no Ant & Dec here which is a small diamond in this otherwise smelly turd) told them that "Simon is British" to which they responded that he should "go back to British" and believe me they were serious. Ah classic. Someone else thought that Simon was French but believe me he isn't that rude.
The game itself passed me by - I have already mentioned my dislike for the game, and I think the Bears won but it could have been the Racoons or even the Beavers. Why do they have those silly names? I notice that rugby union is starting to go the same way. I am all for traditional nicknames but these manufactured ones like the Sale Sharks?
So Monday swung around and at work the talk was all about the adverts. Which one's were funny, which one's were sweet and which one's bombed. No one really mentioned the game. Even TV and radio shows were focused on the ads and not the game itself. As my friend Monge says somewhere else on this blog, "a capitalist's dream".
TV here is full of adverts. And they are mostly terrible. None of the European sex, subtlety or stupidity, rather very old school adverts. For example car adverts just show the car, the car and nothing but the car. Local businesses always have to have the owner in the ad, to build the common touch link. Few are funny, all are pretty obvious, and just ram the product down your throat, after all they don't want you to think about it just buy it.
Product placement is also huge in shows, and none comes as big as Simon Cowell's coke glass that sits in front of him during American Idol. Coke have paid a colossal sum to have it sit there, and as it is not see through there is no way of knowing what Simon is drinking (although my guess is the devil's sperm). I am not a fan of American Idol or Pop Idol, but Jen likes seeing people humiliated so I have caught bits and pieces of it. Last night's was very funny. Not only did some woman murder Black Velvet by singing the wrong tune and not knowing the words, but a rejected contestants family were so angry they started making threats to Simon. They didn't know where he was from and so the presenter of the show (no Ant & Dec here which is a small diamond in this otherwise smelly turd) told them that "Simon is British" to which they responded that he should "go back to British" and believe me they were serious. Ah classic. Someone else thought that Simon was French but believe me he isn't that rude.
posted by Nick at 7:39 PM
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