Commericals no more or so I thought..

Funny, before I was taking the Media Literacy Class at UMass Boston, I used to think that I am not persuaded to buy anything that I saw on TV. I took pride in the fact I rarely ever watch traditional commercials.

Television advertisements appear between shows, but also interrupt the shows at intervals. This method of screening advertisements is intended to capture or grab the attention of the audience, keeping the viewers focused on the television show so that they will not want to change the channel; instead, they will (hopefully) watch the advertisements while waiting for the next segment of the show. This is a technique of adding suspense, especially if the break occurs at a cliffhanger moment in the show.

I used to channel surf for 2 minutes before returning to my current show or just read a book or a magazine. I was all full of myself before, thinking oh, I am so good at this. I don't buy anything that I see on TV especially with traditional commercials.

Well, that may be true, but little did I realize that I do buy a lot that I see from TV. It may not be in a traditional format but rather Product placement. A variant of product placement is advertisement placement. In this case an advertisement for the product (rather than the product itself) is seen in the movie or television series.

As consumers turn away from traditional advertising, tech marketers are picking up the slack by weaving lots of gadgets into the fabric of TV shows and movies. The net, video games and ad-skipping DVRs are forcing marketers to focus more attention on "branded entertainment."

Funny enough, I was watching Wayne's World (I'm a sucker for corny movies) the other week and I couldn't believe that I never got that part before. (Better late than never!)



http://youtube.com/watch?v=v7thSdlRhuM

I was so oblivious about how advertisements really find their ways to you. So, I am going to eat a humble pie and say that I am a sucker for advertisements as you will see in my future blogs on how product placements is the way to get me to say, "I want it, I need it, and I'm going to buy it!"