Evil Ads!
Did you know that some people are actively campaigning to remove commercials from movie theaters? No, really, it’s true: these people appear to have nothing better to do than protest ads on movie screens. This site urges people to yell “No commercials!” as the ads play on the screen; yeah, I’m sure that will be much less annoying than seeing an ad for a local business. The reason behind the anti-commercial campaign?
With TV we can change channels or mute commercials. We can’t do that with movies. We literally have no choice but to watch or listen.
Whoa there - you sure as hell DO have a choice: you don’t have to go to the movie! No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to see “Wedding Crashers,” and I seriously doubt that seeing a 30-second ad for the new Honda Civic is going to ruin the magic of seeing the latest Harry Potter flick. The vast majority of all movies that are released theatrically translate just fine to DVD or a cable-channel, so if the commercials are SUCH a huge problem for you, skip the theatre and watch it at home.
Also involved in this waste-of-time is an organization called “Commercial Alert,” whose goal is to protect communities from commercialism. Riiiiight. Because the evil, scary, frightening commercials are…well, I guess they’re just evil. These idiots also advocate yelling “No commercials!” when ads appear on-screen in the theatre. Again, I’m sure that this is much less offensive and disruptive than anything on-screen.
Good grief. How refreshing to think that some people have absolutely nothing more compelling, troublesome, or distracting to worry about.
With the movie ads, I’m more irritated with the fact that I’m already paying (a lot) to see the movie. Then I have to see the ads. With television, the programming is free BECAUSE of the ads. Note that pay television — not just PPV, but also premium channels such as HBO — do not have advertising. Plus, when I’m watching television, I can eat my own snacks, and not have to pay $10 for less than $1 worth of popcorn and soda.
Having said that, I’m not motivated enough to start or join an organization to remove the ads. And theaters certainly have the right to run them.
I prefer to go to the theater findc a seat & then go get popcorn during the commercials…although some are fun to watch.
Businesses have to make money & commercials pay so be happy we aren’t paying $20 to watch a movie in a theater!
The theater experience is a novelty anymore and with DVDs coming out within 6 months of a movie release why go?
I think it is funny a blogger would write this, “. . .some people have absolutely nothing more compelling, troublesome, or distracting to worry about.” What the heck are blogs?????
I’m with Mark. I pay for commercial TV by sitting through commercials. If I’m going to sit through commericials in the theater, I want somebody to pay me.
Frosty, what does that say about someone who goes to the “trouble” of leaving comments on blogs…?
I go to plenty of movies…
Ads I’ve liked:
* Fanta
* video via cellphones
* Fandango
Ads I’d like if I were wired a bit differently:
* Bod Man fragrance for men
David, I said it was funny, not “trouble.” Blogs are like comic relief for me from the stress of everyday life.
Advertising has become an evil industry because it attempts to use persuasion tactics to manipulate people into doing something they ordinarily wouldn’t do. If a person buys a product when he/she knows perfectly what he/she is getting into, that’s ok. But when a person is forced to buy a product because he/she is compelled to do so against ordinary reasoning, then the advertising becomes evil. Advertising has become a cutthroat business and more and more advertisements have been of the “evil” variety.
Frankly, the world would be better off without ads.
Understood, Frosty.
And Adam — are you serious? Are you really advocating the position that advertising has some sort of hypnotic effect that people simply can not resist? Bwahahahaha!
Adam, you have no idea about that last sentence. Let me preface this by saying that I used to write advertising, but I won’t go back now because I don’t like dealing with the people in the business and it just plain sucks now.
But without advertising:
1) You’d be paying for television. ALL television, except maybe PBS. And also radio. And a lot of web usage, too. Of course, you might be paying for television if you live outside the U.S.
2) Newspapers and magazines would become prohibitively expensive.
3) Worst of all, you wouldn’t have the kind of mass distribution which gives us the wide variety of products we have on the market. Without that distribution system, companies wouldn’t be able to produce products on as large a scale, which in turn would lead to higher prices.
Also, there aren’t very many cases where advertising can manipulate people into doing something they wouldn’t ordinarly do. It can get them to do something they otherwise wouldn’t know they could do (or more commonly, buy something they didn’t know was available), which is often a good thing. And even if advertising causes you to try out a product you otherwise wouldn’t, if it doesn’t work or you don’t like it, you won’t buy it again. If you do, that’s on you.
My complaint is that lately advertising is awful, some of it seem to be written by illiterates, and there is way too much of it.
If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, then advertising is probably the first.
I say that as a former copywriter myself.
But the world better off without advertising? I don’t think so. It might be better off without, for example, Golden Palace ads tattooed onto willing participants’ shaved heads, but advertising in general is far from evil.
AJ, we should have our own discussion going here!
Wrong, advertising is one of the greatest evils of the world today, far more destructive than Saddam or Hitler. It’s VERY hard to see this though because of its subtle effects. Like the frog in cold water, feeling fine, the people of a commercialized society don’t notice the water around them slowly coming to a boil. Of course it’s entirely possible to live your life in a commercialized society just the same as it’s entirely possible to live under Saddam’s dictatorship. Fortunately for you I understand those who support advertising will never change their ways simply beacuse they are unable to understand its ill effects.. To each his own.
The world will be better off without advertising. I agree.
1) paying for TV. TV is free and I dont watch it. Same for radio. It’s a bunch of stupid fads and sheep bait about homosexuals and ‘reality shows’ I could care less about. Substandard ‘entertainment’ paid for by the ’substandard people’ who watch the ads that accompany it. I’ve got better things to do and you would too if you tried a couple weeks without ads.
2) Newspapers and magazines become prohibitively expensive. Fine, the public library becomes more popular. I can live with that.
3) products at store yadda yadda.
There are plenty of no name brands in the stores that survive and do not advertise and their product works just as well or better than those who do advertise. I buy those because I dont want to pay 50 cents more for ads.