Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Ad-Oddity

While watching the latest installment of everyone's favorite Canadian teen show, I couldn't help but wonder why the fuck they can't get real advertisers. In the last episode of "Degrassi", there was a homo-aggressive kiss while sparring, a closeted (and apparently not fully self-realized) aggressor calling his victim a "fag", the copasetic victim trying to maintain a friendship electing against retorting by dropping his own "you're the fag" line, and churchy prude girl finding a vibrator only to end up having it go off in class with her teacher pulling it out of her bag. Seriously.

All that shit happened in 22 minutes of programming.

Eight minutes were just sitting there for opportunistic advertisers, and I'm stuck fast-forwarding through Cash 4 Gold ads for an entire commercial break, a Switchfoot Greatest Hits album* and then the obligatory Playtex spot.

*Switchfoot? Who the fuck are they? Switchfoot? Upon initial inspection, these guys are "Alternative rock band from San Diego". Huh. Well, if they're from San Diego, they must be good, right?... Apparently, they're one of those non-Christian rock Christian rock bands. Regardless, I have no idea who the fuck these guys are, and apparently they have a greatest hits (plural!) album. What fucking world do I live in?

Now, I get the Playtex spot. For as long as I can remember, all teen programming has inundated with skin care and menstruation advertising. Hell, I think the whole world--and by whole world, I mean everyone that matters (i.e. people between the ages of 21 and 35 or so)--remembers Rebecca Gayheart as the Noxzema girl. I'd imagine that each person that knows Rebecca Gayheart as the Noxzema girl, which is really just about everyone who knows who Rebecca Gayheart is, would first name the program they saw that ad air during as being "Saved By The Bell". Sure, the ad aired during "Hang Time" and "California Dreams" and probably even "USA High". Maybe it even aired during the original "90210".

And you know what? It makes sense to have that kind of ad on those shows because teens are the only people watching these shows without any sense of irony or guilt, and they're more than likely going to be the only people watching the show who would buy anything advertised on it. I mean, are advertisers going to decide that they need to pursue the ironic fans of a show and have only Busted Tees, Hall & Oates, "The Colbert Report", and drug paraphernalia ads? While there may be more disposable income in that viewership demographic, it not exactly one you can market to with any degree of effectiveness.

But this fucking ad? What the fuck? What kid has a fucking dearth of gold that they need to turn into cold, hard cash? I know the show's Canadian, but these kids ain't prospectin'.

P.S. The Darcy's sister finding the vibrator storyline was fucking awesome. If you get the chance, watch**.

**Go to full episodes of "Degrassi". The episode is called "Man With Two Hearts".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In both of our entries written on the same day (you wrote your earlier, but I didn't read it until today), we both used the term "dearth". Brothers?

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