Seamless integration of advertising and prime time sitcom

Have you heard the news? The GEICO Cavemen are going prime-time. ABC announced that the commercial characters will become the basis for a sitcom. This represents, I think, a great example of “seamless integration,” which refers to the ways in which advertisers work their products into movies, music and television. Think BMW Minis and The Italian Job. From a theoretical viewpoint the intertextual nature of this shift between advertising and prime time television represents the ways in which texts and images bleed as media cross contaminate. I think this would also qualify as an example of convergence culture where the text (advertisement) from one form converges with that of another form (the prime time sitcom). I have written elsewhere about what I think is the importance of the depiction in advertising of men as cavemen (along with the depiction of men as wolves and men caught in public with their pants down) and the implications of this depiction for American culture and society. From a critical perspective, I’m not too thrilled with this latest move. But the lighthearted side of me can’t wait to see those crazy cavemen make their way through all the social awkwardness that prime-time television can muster. This isn’t the first time commercial characters have made the leap into prime time as "Baby Bob" and The California Raisons both of commercial fame, for a brief time, entered the hallowed halls of network television.

Shock and Awe Advertising

Advertising, along with other forms of popular culture, promotes public discussion. The Super Bowl ads that were perceived by some viewers as anti-gay, anti-restaurant worker, and pro-suicide took a lot of heat in the public forum; so much heat that the ads were pulled from rotation. Suicide apparently has become a theme in contemporary advertising as the GM robot's demise was followed by a Volkswagon spot that featured a depressed man teetering on the ledge of a building. Then there is a Washington Mutual bank ad that also depicts a man who threatens to jump off a roof if the bank doesn’t stop offering free checking, and there is a current CareerBuilder.com spot that depicts office workers diving off a cliff. That’s a lot of suicide, don’t you think? And, no doubt the various groups out there concerned with the prevention of suicide have advertisers directly in their sights. What’s going on in these ads must be more than “shock and awe,” a trend we have seen of late: you know those VW ads where two guys are driving down the street and suddenly a car crashes into them? The ads are meant to demonstrate the automobile's ability to withstand such a crash, but the startling way the advertiser accomplishes it is a little over the top for some. I suggest that these “suicide” ads may also be considered within this current trend, but they are much more. As I wrote about in a previous post, ads that get talked about are considered successful. And, in advertising as in show business, it’s not what they are saying about you that matters, but that they are saying anything about you at all. In an world of multi-tasking and inattentiveness to advertising, ads that get talked about are those with which we are engaged. Conversation extends the life of the ads. It is in this way that such extended conversations make advertising a part of participatory culture. But participatory advertising is such that meanings are extended beyond the advertiser's intended message through public discourse and individual deliberation of the rightness or wrongness of such depictions. This is high risk business on the part of the advertiser; somewhat calculated, however. But this newer leap--excuse the pun--into the dark side of life raises the question what is advertising today competing against? Are ads like this necessary to distract people from real events, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? As a spectacle advertising does draw our attention from the important and redirects it to the less important aspects of life. I guess talking about two men kissing while eating a Snickers or watching a group of people jump off a cliff (especially when you know it isn’t real) provides a diversion from all the misery of daily life. Plop. Plop. Fizz. Fizz. Oh what a relief it is! Advertising, that is.

Advertising is an ideological forum in a participatory culture

When we consider the concept of participatory advertising, it is important to acknowledge there are myriad ways in which to participate. Mostly we talk about the Web 2.0 social networking of commercials that takes place via YouTube and the like. But there are other ways of participating. In the case of this year’s Super Bowl, groups concerned with gay rights, suicide prevention, and even restaurant workers used the opportunity to publicly react to three commercials in particular and to use the opportunity to engage the public in discourse concerning what is right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate. This social use of advertising allows competing ideologies to be presented and it is through this unintended use of advertising that “we” get to make sense of our world. The group GLAAD, took offense to the depiction in a Snickers commercial of two men kissing who then declare that they need to something manly. The group claims the ad is homophobic. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention criticized General Motors for using a perfectionist robot who jumps off a bridge because it dropped a bolt during the assembly line process. And, the National Restaurant Association reacted to the KFed depiction as a fast-food worker as insulting to the nation's almost 13 million employees in the restaurant industry. From time to time the American Family Association will launch an attack as they did some years ago against Calvin Klein who at the time was running what some have dubbed the “kiddie-porn” campaign. Needless to say, the Super Bowl is an opportunity for groups that otherwise wouldn’t be heard to have their voice included in the public discourse. I’ll bet that you never thought about advertising playing such a role in American culture and society. What we are witnessing is certainly an unintended effect of advertising. But in a participatory culture it makes sense that there are any number of ways to participate with advertising; this is just one.

The Super Bowl Spectacle is About to Descend Upon Us

I read this week that "If people don’t watch the Super Bowl"…"they are not part of the American culture." This statement gave me pause to considerjust what is American culture and is there even such a thing as one American culture. Before addressing those issues, I want to point out that just about half the U.S. population views the game; gender is split 60/40 in favor of males. The Super Bowl is not only an American festival, but it is a media spectacle. Media spectacles like the Super Bowl become a means for the mainstream media, which are beholden to mainstream corporate interests, to distract citizens from the issues that really affect us. As a spectacle, therefore, the Super Bowl takes us away not only from the mundane quality of everyday life, but also distracts us from the serious political issues of the day. Even the Army Bowl, which this year was sponsored by Bell Helicopter, provided a way to combine--and therefore integrate--the experience of sports and war. I offer this brief critique as an introduction to the ways in which ideology is managed in American society. It is through spectacles like the Super Bowl that we celebrate commercialism. By the way, Christmas and several other religious holidays have been elevated to the level of spectacle. In the end, I’m wondering where are the other 160 million citizens of the United States, many of whom may be elderly or below the age where they are likely to be interested in the spectacle of sport. If the elderly and very young are not part of American culture, who else isn’t a part of it? And, even for half the country that does engage with this spectacle, it seems to me the nature of their engagement is quite varied: some people come together to watch the game (with varying degrees of interest depending on the teams that are playing), others watch for the commercials, others may not watch at all, but want to participate in the intimacy of the celebrations which themselves will vary greatly depending on age, income, ethnicity, among other factors. Is there one American culture? I think not. If you don’t participate in the Super Bowl celebration, don’t feel bad, as I maintain you can still keep your membership card in American culture. Invariably, even for those who watch, the game is likely to be disappointing, and in studies following the game, many people can’t even remember the products that were advertised, or worse, they confuse one product for another as in one study a respondent described a commercial for Doritos as being for Tostitos.