Mention the 1960s and 1970s to broadcast TV execs, and you probably get sad sighs, as they reminisce dreamily about a time before the internet; before TiVo; before VHS; before original cable programming; before the remote control; when people would turn the TV to one single network and leave it there all night, watching the commercials and everything. It was the “Golden Age of TV,” for sure. Because TV got all of the gold.
Those days are gone, of course, but it doesn’t stop the broadcast networks from devising plans to once more grab, trap and have their way with a mass audience. Last week, ABC reportedly wanted to disable the fast-forward buttons on DVRs, and this week, CBS has announced their bold new marketing strategy: they are going to advertise on eggs.
Eggs!! CBS is going to advertise their shows on eggs!!!!!!!! You know, the ones from chickens and shit. Eggs!! That you fry and poach and scramble and, er, three-minute.
Apparently, there is some kind of laser-etching technology that allows– EGGS!!! No seriously!! They are going to advertise their shows on eggs!!!
And they are proud of this idea!!
Newspapers, magazines and Web sites are so crowded with ads for entertainment programming that CBS was ready to try something different, Mr. Schweitzer said. The best thing about the egg concept was its intrusiveness.
Yes, because as us internet users have been telling the creators of pop-ups for years, we really really fracking love intrusive ads! I already have pop-up blockers installed on all of my browsers, am I going to have to invest in some kind of egg-blocker now? Please, advertisers, give me more intrusiveness! Intrude intrude intrude! Please continue to force me to watch trailers on DVDs; read ads above urinals (nearly all of which have at least one ad touting the idea of advertising above urinals); smell magazines overdosed with cologne; and now, eat food that hawks TV shows!
I don’t think so: you could serve me a 24oz Rib-Eye steak with the CBS eye imprinted right in the middle and it wouldn’t get me to watch the assortment of police procedurals and reality shows that make up this year’s CBS fall lineup.
The guess here is that it won’t work, and most of the eggs will end up where they belong: on the face of whomever thought of this in the first place.
This makes me want to laser etch the Medialoper on Leslie Moonves’ forehead.