Comments on: Marketing out of control at FX

By: Darwin Stephenson

Darwin Stephenson — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:53:30 +0000

If you want to stop the behavior then you have to eradicate the source. In this case, FX is in the business of creating content for the purposes of selling advertisements. They may have crossed the line but only the advertiser can move that line back where it belongs.

I suggest everyone that is outraged by this go out and test drive a GMC Acadia. Spend a good hour with the salesman and right when he tries to "close" you respond, "Oh, I would've bought this vehicle but GM's flagrant advertorial in The Riches turned me off on GM products. I've decided to buy a foreign model."

Then get up, walk off the lot and hope that enough of your generation take to protesting with their wallets too. If GM gets enough complaints from car salesman they won't do this anymore.

By: Lana

Lana — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:31:44 +0000

Gotta say, Brawndo was a huge hit as a sponsor of ROFLCon. Everyone dug the virals -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbxq0IDqD04

Thanks for the shout-out! (Pssst... I am not a C3 researcher, though. I am a CMS grad student, but Project New Media Literacies pays my bills.)

By: communicatrix

communicatrix — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:32:58 +0000

Bah. Or "blargh," as people seem to be saying these days. Gassy pirates, I guess.

They've been doing this crap to ads for years; it was only a matter of time before they crapped up the shows, too.

Rick paints a grim but highly realistic picture of our future, I fear. Even HBO got its cheese on a few times during the Sopranos--I'm thinking in particular of one unfortunate episode with a RAZR.

Speaking of, isn't Edie Falco god's real gift to TV? She blows me away in every single thing I see her do.

By: Rick Liebling

Rick Liebling — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:50:24 +0000

First, no comment on the irony that the actor pushing cars is Minnie 'Driver'?

Grant, I think this is going to only become more prevalent. I would expect to see big corporations create their own distribution channels (online, mobile, broadcast, etc.) and use that to create 'shows' that feature loose storylines around the promotion of products (a little coffee with your sugar?).

Pure 'art' will be pushed into ghettos (niche cable tv, indie radio stations...), while major outlets will fight the corporation-owned outlets by offering even lower common denominator material.

Those niche cable and indie outlets? That's Bravo TV, which started out highbrow and now is completely commercial, and indie rock stopped being indie about 20 years ago.

That's the circle of (commercial) life.

By: niti bhan

niti bhan — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:04:41 +0000

i maybe wrong but isn't this like a throwback to the early days of television when 'soaps' were made to actually sell soap etc?

By: Eric Nehrlich

Eric Nehrlich — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:56:55 +0000

Friday Night Lights had a scene like that. It was slightly more defensible, as one of the main characters, Jason Street, had become a car salesman, and was learning on the job. But they spent a whole scene of the "Humble Pie" episode having him extol the virtues of some Chevy SUV to a potential customer, and the climactic moment is him making the sale. And then they cut to an actual commercial for that SUV. Yuck.