The Chinese Wall Has Come Tumbling Down
Posted by anastasia on 11-12-2006
I'm sure most of you read the article in The New York Times, reg. required, about how ad agencies and brands are now producing their own media and entertainment, sometimes with obvious branding elements (like the Burger King movie about the King) or the "so subtle you wouldn't even know it" approach like Mountain Dew's snowboarding movie "First Descent." The goal of sponsors is to create something so entertaining that the audience (mostly teens and young adults) will feel love not only for the movie, TV show, game or website, but for the brand.
So what's the difference between doing this and traditional sponsorship or advertising? I think that the notion of the separation of sponsors or ads from independently-created content (whether it be news or entertainment) is being eviscerated. It was much easier to educate young people about media and marketing literacy when you could point to what was clearly an advertisement and talk about whether or not the advertiser may have influenced the content in some way or focus on desconstructing the actual ad. Then came product placement and having to teaching young people that Crest being featured on "The Apprentice" or "Apple" laptops in "Sex and the City" or Cover Girl in their YA novel was no coincidence. Now teens have to be aware that the content itself is being funded and created by a brand (or its agency) with the ultimate goal of selling them something.
It sounds a bit like science fiction (Invasion of the brands! Their takeover of content is almost complete). I think it's risky and has a lot of potential to backfire, especially if young people begin to question why the entertainment or experience feels like one big ad. And even more so if the entertainment experience is just lame. Then again, this generation is so used to being bombarded with marketing, they might see through it, shrug it off, and still consume the entertainment if it is entertaining (the numbers some of these sites mentioned in the Times article are getting seem to prove this point). If enough of these original productions succeed, most of our entertainment could soon become one big infomercial, advertorial, etc. subtly pushing one brand and excluding any competitive brands without anyone even realizing it.
The journalist in me feels like there needs to be obvious disclosure for these branded entertainment products, and as paranoid as it sounds, I worry about marketers baking in some sort of subliminal messages into these entertainment products. Some might say, um, isn't a movie about the BK mascott obvious enough? Or a game with flourescent Snickers bars or website called Bud TV? And maybe it is, but it couldn't hurt to provide a standard statement, especially if the product is less than obvious. I just think the "Chinese Wall" provided some sort of ethical boundary between marketers/advertisers and the content itself. With it completely gone, it feels like we're heading down a slippery slope where marketers get to call the shots about what makes the final cut.
What do you think?
November 13th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I first felt brands invading my personal space when they started renaming sports venues for basketball and baseball to bear some brand name. And here in Cincinnati one arena was renamed three times in about three years because the bank that sponsored it kept being swallowed up by larger corporations. Even when I watch sporting events, the halftime reports are even sponsored. (Such as "Cingular at the Half" report.)
All of this is to say that I do think it's a slippery slope to see what marketing techniques will come up with next. I find it annoying. Although I think the Burger King guy is the creepiest mascot ever (especially on commercials where people woke up in bed with the guy) and I would refuse to eat at Burger King just because of him, I wonder what effect it will have on teens. Will they be as annoyed as I am with the sports advertising? Or has it just become business as usual to them? I get frustrated when there are programs supposedly designed to be "news" (like Dateline and other shows) that end up being long infomercials for the latest book release, movie, etc. I think those shows should have warnings. They disguise themselves as news, but they are just advertising for someone's product.
Will teens even be able to recall a day when something was created without an ulterior motive? Or do those things even exist anymore? And if these marketing techniques do backfire, what messages will teens listen to from marketers? Viral marketing seems to be the current trend, although will teens figure out that some of those messages are planted by the brand as well?
November 14th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Frighteningly enough, this was already the subject of Max Barry's satire, "Syrup."
http://www.amazon.com/Syrup-Maxx-Barry/dp/0140291873/sr=8-2/qid=1163547401/ref=sr_1_2/102-3273943-7584965?ie=UTF8&s=books
You wait long enough, even the unthinkable becomes commonplace.