Right, so I am back to watching daytime tv this week. It is not that I sit and watch it, per say, but there is something about the drone of voices and flashing lights that keeps me from going mental when I am working from home all day long. Free TV have been rolling out a plethora of ‘new channels’ lately, most of them just showing old shows from the 80’s [humm, when new is not so new]. Now that is not too much of an issue for me as I have recently grown fond of ‘The Rockford Files’ and would watch ‘Magnum’ and the ‘A-team’ over most of the current stuff that is on these days [yesterday Murder She Wrote was on Magnum – fabulous!] but recently they have changed the line-ups to feature Baywatch [argh] and old 50’s and 60’s shows instead. Anyway, it means I have been exposed to a fair amount of crap commercials as well.
Life Insurance TVCs are poor at the best of times [yes, I am guilty of having one on my resume but let’s not talk about that right now] but this one has outdone most by offering…wait for it…a FREE CLOCK RADIO!!!!! if you SIGN UP NOW – wow, really, why not steak knives [yeah, yeah, probably not the best for ‘life’ insurance, whatever] and a crock pot or is that too ‘bank account’ for them? Can you picture the moment of creative genius on that one? makes me cringe. Can’t find the commercial but a landing page is close enough for this little spark of brilliance.
Now on to other things, this is a lovely campaign by The Cerebral Palsy Alliance to raise funds in order to reduce the waiting time for equipment for the most common (and often extremely debilitating) childhood disability. I have seen a 30 sec one as well, that I think is a bit better cut down, but here is the extended version. Bit of bad press in the YouTube comments but the fb page is getting some really good support.
Then there is always product placement…news flash – 99.9% of all products you see on TV, in movies or used by celebrities [not quite as high but still prevalent] are paid placement. So we’re watching NCIS last night and what do I see but massive Cisco placement everywhere. Having worked with an ICT brand I know how hard it is to sell this stuff, having worked with placement I can’t even imagine how much they paid to not only get the stuff on the show but have entire scenes dominated by it [there is even ‘instructional’ video conference bits in a subsequent show]. Spend money to make money in practice. Wonder if it worked?
IPad competition much?
Even got the terminology on screen
And finally, can’t anyone just be satisfied with the season it is currently, or even next? Kind of like the shops that all start to put up Christmas lights in the beginning of October, [no Thanksgiving means x-mas rolls in right after the October long weekend. Easter candy comes out the 2nd week of January but that is for another day] the stores have WINTER clothes in already. Took this pic the other day – it was sweltering outside, autumn doesn’t even start officially until March, it will be hot well into April and winter is still 4 months away.
Next up on TV this afternoon – Drew Carey, Happy Days, Head of the Class, I Dream of Jeannie and psychedelic kids shows. Looks like it’s Ellen for the second time today. I even [horrors] had 2 news shows on yesterday.
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