Comments on: Advertisement space for sale! Call now!

By: Adam Benforado

Adam Benforado — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:27:28 +0000

Thanks for the thoughtful comments! I think what is particularly disheartening to me is that these types of decisions (to create an exhibit at a gallery that caters to a particular corporate sponsor or to blend the line between advertising and editorial content at a paper) have such an important (and negative) impact but can be initiated by people with the best of intentions.

By: Brian H.

Brian H. — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:10:05 +0000

I love corporations to a point, but I really dislike their sponsorship, of not just art, but of ballparks too, especially ballparks. If they ever change the name of Wrigley Field, I’ll be sick. I know that already is a corporate name, but ….

Also, look at product placement in movies. I always wonder, every time I see a Pepsi or a box of Wheaties, how much it cost the company to have it placed in that scene.

It seems as if sometimes, life is just one big advertisement. Egads.

By: Tamara Piety

Tamara Piety — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:59:18 +0000

Adam – I couldn’t agree with you more. There is a toxic blend of product placement and advertising in not just entertainment but in the places where we expect to get real information. While as you note, Parade has also been rather light reading, the casual blending of advertiser interests in editorial content is deeply disturbing. It parallels the way drug companies influence medical education and continuing medical education. It makes us eternally skeptical and for me anyway, mars even entertainment. Every time I go to a movie now I wonder what products are product placements and which are not. Nine times out of ten, if I ask the question, when I research it I find out that it is a product placement. That sort of skepticism applied to traditional sources of news makes it ever more difficult to sort out real information from promotion and I think contributes to the population’s cynicism and feelings of being ineffectual, that political activism is futile, because no one knows who to trust. Some of that sort of fear may underlie some of those who support the “Tea Party” movement. I disagree with their positions and tactics but I think some of the distrust of government is fomented by an environment in which it is generally difficult to discern who to trust and altruism is inherently suspect. Anyway, nice post!