Penn & Teller have made Vegas their home. It's a place where it's ok to construct false realities, fool people with illusions and trickery and ultimately con people out of their money using "legit" (read: casinos) and illegit techniques.
Unfortunately FCC commish, Jonathan Adelstein doesn't quite buy into Madison + Strip(tm) yet and for this reason, Burnett and his Madison Avenue Cronies might find that their celebrations could be a little premature.
Bottom line, Adelstein is putting his foot down at the "commercialization of media" and the use of "covert commercial pitches" with respect to product placement et al. Can you imagine how laughable it would be to have little "advertorial" type stickers on all paid placements on TV? Might as well put a big "L" sign on all participating brands or a "kick me" label, alongside the "PG" rating on all content.
While I can't help but say "I told you so" and most of you know that I'm not exactly a big fan of the proliferation of product placement and the "infestation" of content, I do think Adelstein is partly missing the mark...consumers aren't as dumb as they used to be (I write in my book) and therefore we shouldn't underestimate them and their intelligence. This goes for Madison Avenue and it goes for the FCC too.
All things being equal, I think they (consumers) should tend to be able to sort out the riff from the raff, and I do get nervous when the FCC sticks their grubby paws into anything they really know nothing about.
That being said, what is happening here is that the greedy networks and desperate marketers/agencies are getting a taste of their own medicine.
Content is King. Leave it Alone. The path to recovery does not lie in incremental departures from the 30-second spot; it comes from a total "all-stop"; a 180 degree about turn that involves embracines a totally different set of assumptions, expectations, guidelines and tools.
Tampering with Content is like altering your Windows Registry. Not a good thing.
Hopefully the FCC will get bored and move on to another witch hunt, but until they do, let this be a pretty damn vivid warning that we should seriously and strongly consider taking out some contingency insurance.
Recent Comments