Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog

Well, it was a weekend of NFL playoffs and relentless commercial breaks, so here are a few observations.

The broadcast version of targeted advertising means every pod in an NFL broadcast contains at least one truck commercial. Men buy trucks. Men watch football. Presto, whammo, bring on the truck ads.

I got so sick of Chevy’s “This is our country” song that the mute button became a dear friend. And, of course, living in Texas means the super manly “Texas version” of all these ads during local and cable breaks. The screen virtually drips with testosterone during the truck ads, and the manipulation is so obvious. And if I see the Loch Ness monster spit that Toyota truck one more time, I’m going to hurl. It was great the first 100 times, but c’mon.

Truck ads in NFL games are a caricature of themselves, a parody in sincere clothing, and they’re so 20th Century.

This is why God made TiVo.

After a score, there’s a commercial break, followed by the kick-off and another commercial break. AUGH! Sonic needs a new ad agency. McDonald’s needs a new ad agency. The rubber floor is fun, but who needs the silly Bud logo ads? A little Viagra goes a long way. And then there’s those damned truck commercials!

Give me more of the Geico cavemen.

I watched nearly the entire two-hour pre-show on ESPN yesterday. I think that Boomer, the coach, the pimp, the player and the mouth make the best NFL analyst team on the air (wait a minute, ESPN isn’t on the “air”). The show, however, splits its time with commercials and pre-produced (with a deep-voiced, macho announcer, of course) teases. I swear the show has more marketing than content, but what do I expect?

This is the sad reality of the end of the blockbuster advertising economy, for there are few blockbusters these days. The NFL playoffs still qualify, I guess, and that’s why traditional advertisers still want to spend their money here. But hold on, fellas! Jamming nine pounds in an eight pound bag is a sure sign that the end is near, a hatchet aimed at the neck of the goose that laid the golden eggs.

All of my teams lost, BTW.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 10:15 am and is filed under Broadcasting, Advertising, Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.