Do you wave your pinkie at me sir?

The World of BBC News covers this television commercial ad brought to us by New South Wales, Australia.

Phil Mercer says in the report, ‘Television and online ads show scornful women bending their little fingers at young men in fast cars. It’s a signal to infer that the men have small penises.’

Oh so that’s what that means, no wonder none of the taxis stopped for me when I was in Australia doing that at them. And by the way Phil, the signal would imply the presence of a small penis, though the signaler could maybe infer its existence.

Hypothetical small member asides, the report goes on to warn that some think the ad might promote the finger waving in public, and lead to small-donged road rage.

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Via the Consumerist.com

The Consumerist writes that people are apparently watching commercials recorded on DVR devices more than no times. A lot more than no times. For some shows the numbers are estimated around 2 million extra commercial viewers, once thought Lost to advertisers.

The commenteers on their article probably rightly hit the nail on the head when they say its mostly a combination of people letting the program run while they leave the room, or simply forgetting they have the ability the fast forward. TV is both a passive and pacifying medium, eventually making the act of pausing and fast forwarding a chore unto itself.

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Did you know Thomas Edison invented popcorn?

Commercials before movies is worse than piracy, says The Movie Blog, which I found via digg.

Here is the writer-man’s all caps beef: ‘The theater industry is pulling in RECORD amounts of income from those commercials, and unlike TV (where we get a free show), WE GET NOTHING IN RETURN FOR OUR TIME SITTING THERE WHEN THE MOVIE IS SUPPOSED TO START.’

The Movie Blog goes on to shout: ‘I don’t mind theaters making money off me when I get a product, service or entertainment in return… but commercials playing at 7pm when you told me the movie would be starting is doing nothing but STEALING my time. You are taking from me without giving anything in return. HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM ONLINE MOVIE PIRACY!?!?’

While ads before movies can be obnoxious, I don’t find them that obnoxious. While no one is really ’stealing’ your time, this could amount to false advertising when theaters claim a movie starts at one time, but delays the movie with ads. As long as the movie starts at the advertised time, the pre-game commercials would be no worse than the horrible slide show most theaters have running before hand.

I tend to sympathize with the theater chains, who don’t make a ton of money off the box office (that’s why they rape you at the concessions stand).

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Shameful, shameful money

The ‘Life Takes Visa’ campaign has a fair number of detractors, notably the Consumerist who found this article on Credit Slips, which in turn criticizes the ‘Morning in Manhattan’ ad found on this page.

The ad shows a perfect clockwork of commerce, with everyone paying with Visa, until someone tries to pay with actual cash. Everything slows down as the man is sneered at, then given his change. Though the only actual slow down in the paying processes seems to be the amount to time it take the cashier to sneer. Don’t worry, before long automated payment systems will eliminate the need for your job at all, cashier lady.

Originally, I liked this campaign when the ads were comparing using credit / debit card as opposed to using a personal check, by far the slowest way possible to pay for anything. But using cash still tends to be faster than using a check or credit card, especially if you have to sign a slip or punch in your pin number. Or maybe the phone line has no carrier, or maybe your magnetic strip is dying and the cashier has to punch in the numbers. Then sometimes the bank service network is temporarily down. You know what, I have two dollars in my wallet how about I give you those instead?

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This picture is wrong for you to look at

This video by Dove is a well-done public service spot encouraging parents to talk to their girls about body image before the media does. This is some nice positioning work for Dove, itself a beauty brand, trying to place itself outside the anorexic mass media mold.

The video is part of this site and its ‘Dove Self-Esteem Fund’, aimed at buying back self esteem from England’s foreign creditors. The 21st century economy is a strange and mysterious thing.

In the end this still breaks down to brand building, but its easier for a brand like Dove to criticize its own industry than it is for a cigarette company to pay for anti-smoking ads. Dove really can legitimately find ways to sell beauty products without inflicting psychic damage to women, while it’s hard for a tobacco company to claim it doesn’t support the use of tobacco products.

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