Some advertising people, out of sheer principal, never use Tivo to skip commercials. Some.
Not me. Until recently I’ve lunged for the peanut every break, and for two reasons:
Reason one for biting the hand that feeds me - I could then experience the world of communication as a regular person would, ie., with as much commercial avoidance as possible.
Reason two - for an earnest creator of commercials, sitting through a parade of shoddy merchandise was always torture. The poor showing for my industry, the lost opportunities, it all pissed me off. And I’d forever be trying to make even the worst piece of crap better, at least in my head. “Gosh, that’s the wrong track to put with that flying logo cgi abomination. If only they’d…”
After a long hard day of trying to make actual good work better, it was not a relaxing outro.
I’ve recently realized my dreck-avoidance scheme, while making evenings more pleasant, has been lulling me into a place of disgusting complacency.
So, the thumb now stays off the FF. I sit through every second of every half hour. I gape. I gag. I re-edit. I fume.
And I come in to work the next morning, vowing to make my little contribution a good one. The spirit applies to everything I do, not just TV ads.
So force yourself to do what no sane person would do: stop skipping commercials.
Start seeing all marketing, not just the talked-about stuff, but the abhorrent majority.
You’ll know you can do better than them. You’ll know 99% of clients can be better served. You’ll be blissfully, productively angry.
Image from chikawatanabe
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