This morning, as I read an email response from a rep at one of the ad agencies I met with in New York last week, I couldn’t help but feel a little disheartened by his words... “the 30 second spot is dead.”
First off, what is it with people? They seem so happy to be the kings of these glib declarations; every time technology supposedly trounces another piece of our analogue history they rush be the first to proclaim something dead before its time. Film is dead, records are dead, your parents are dead... blah blah blah, but don’t worry, they’re being replaced with something far shinier, more efficient, and death-proof! No seriously, I replaced your parents with cookware; learn to fry an egg it builds character.
Let’s be clear here, when I say the word “disheartened,” I of course mean I’m tired of this band wagon mentality that permeates our stinkin’ industry, the fools who jump from one piece of tech to the next – EACH and every time claiming it’s the nail in the coffin on film; the ones who say the future of Hollywood is on mobile phones (a big salute to you especially); the ones who think 3D will be the band-aid over the wounds that story suffers weekly with each release of these safe bet remakes and reboots... I do NOT mean that I question my ability to survive as a broadcast content provider in the midst of a sea change. For you see we have built our boat in these waters and it’s made of WOOD (wood floats, silly).
Now, you might be asking yourself “who is this human turd man who defends the advertisement of corporate America?!” And I will respond thusly: I am not a TURD I’m a man and I have feelings!... Look, I am also no fan of the bombardment of consumer products we all live through daily. I am not a fan of billboards and bus stop ads; I do not revel in 25 pages of cologne bathed half naked men and women airbrushed into oblivion before I even get to the contents pages of my latest copy of Guns and Ammo Magazine. NO SIR! But damn it if I don’t know a single person who isn’t just as excited about the commercials in the Super Bowl as they are the game itself.
Because when commercial advertising is good, it speaks to us on a fundamental level, it makes us laugh, it makes us cringe, it creates nostalgia -- it becomes part of our social consciousness. It also pays for our goddamn television production.
It’s so funny, when I discovered Hulu I thought I found the holy grail of television content distribution. What do you mean I don’t have to wait for reruns of a missed show?... in fact – HOLY SHIT!!! I can actually see entire seasons of programming? Back episodes at my fingertips? Any time I want you say? The networks are be-HIND this?!? Oh... well what are those little stupid dots on the timeline... commercials? Well... it’s only one at a time I guess I can live with that.
I actually prefer it to Tivo. You have to sit through an occasional commercial, so what? It’s better than sitting through 5 at a time so it’s a step up from standard broadcast. Also, It requires nothing of me except that I have a computer in my lap and 27 minutes of time to waste on another episode of Fraggle Rock. I don’t have to pay for cable, I don’t have to have any sort of television signal coming into my life, I don’t have to schedule recordings and delete old episodes when it fills up... and I can still catch my episodes of the Daily Show, South Park, and anything else pretty much. Free.
But this is not to be so. Hulu is turning over to the evils of pay service, because in this digital age people still feel the need to seek out ways to absorb this painstakingly crafted content without paying the piper. It’s ad revenue that creates the ability to produce and air these shows. If not ad revenue it’s back end dividends from the DVD market or pay service sites. But of course, like everything else, DVD was proclaimed dead as well -- at the hands of the potent mix of digital piracy and the still hazy future of distribution.
Maybe people are right, maybe commercials are shitty, but let me tell you I watch plenty of shows that I would never want to own or pay for in general, so I am happy to sit through commercials if it means I don’t need to buy a DVD or pay for the content. If I look for alternatives that don’t require me to pay for it or watch commercials, I’m neutering the ability for the shows I watch to be made in the first place.
Let’s be real though, the reason people are so burned out on commercials is because, by and large, they suck. But once a year, and on a few very rare occasions in between we are blessed with a competition of advertising that has many times lead to some of the most memorable television moments in the history of the medium, so socially or comically relevant that they are recorded, nay, burned into our pop collective.
Where’s the beef. The Budweiser Frogs. Mean Joe Greene. Got Milk?
IF the 30 second spot is to die, as so proclaimed by the agency ass hat who’s passing the buck on his own industry before doing a damn thing about it, if this is to be so – it is his own damn fault. If commercials were as consistently entertaining as the content they pull us away from, if advertisers were better at their jobs than they think they are, we’d have no reason to switch the channel.
In the end, I’m not at all sad at the idea of the 30 second spot getting a serious run for its money. They need to step up their game and create engaging content, learn to keep us interested. A commercial may be 30 seconds but it’s still filmmaking to its core. Make it good and people will happily watch.
-Nick Harris
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