Harry Potter and the Curse of Endless Advertisements
It was a Harry Potter filled weekend in A Free Man’s household this weekend. I finished the book in an orgy of laziness on Saturday - don’t worry, no spoiler from me. Although, Dr. O’C’s Mom spoiled it for both of us by passing along some gossip she’d heard about the ending, and people wonder why your loved ones’ mothers are hard to deal with. In addition to finishing the book, on Sunday we went to see the new Harry Potter film. It was good, what you expect from a Harry Potter movie. But what I found amazing was the number of advertisements before the movie. There were no less than 20 standard 30 second TV commercials before the previews, advertising in themselves, even started. We don’t get to the movies often, so I think that this seeping in of TV commercials before the films is stands in starker contrast than if we went every week. I don’t know what it’s like in the States, but I imagine very similar. When we were leaving in 2004, there would be a couple of commercials prior to the films, so I suspect that number has risen since then. What annoys me is that I’ve paid £7 to go and see the film and then I have to be subjected to 20 minutes of ads before another 10 minutes of ads before the film? Harry Potter is OK because product placement can’t be slipped into the film, but in a lot of cases you are then subjected to another 2 hours of advertising in the form of product placement.
Advertising is nothing new, but it’s become ubiquitous in the past couple of decades and its crept beyond the places we expect it - TV, radio, newspapers. I wonder how long the average person goes without seeing an advert. As I type this virtually any website (this one included) that I go for sourcing or information is festooned with ads. When I venture 
outside, I will see advertising on peoples’ clothes, cars, buses, trains, sides of buildings, and so on. When I go shopping anything that I purchase and place in a bag is like a little kick back to the shop in which I’ve just spent money. If I buy a coffee, I advertise with their takeaway cup. Can anyone in the States name a sports arena not named for some company or another? These things are often a blight, while in Crete this spring we were driving along the north coast, enjoying the rugged hills rounded a curve and were confronted with a bright red Vodafone billboard that was the size of an office building. Nice.
And one could continue. What’s troubling is that advertising is perhaps the only media (and I use the term loosely) in which deception or even outright lying is inherent. This is particularly insidious in advertising to children and there is less and less government control of advertisers. The ultimate goal is to sell the product, and any means necessary is OK. I don’t remember the last item I purchased solely because of an advertisement, but I am brand loyal. I buy Apple computers, Levi’s jeans, Sainsbury’s groceries and I could go on but I am, in effect, advertising. My point is, where does this brand loyalty come from? In some cases, maybe the brand I use is superior, but in other cases (groceries, coffee) it is not. So, despite thinking myself an intelligent discerning consumer, I am susceptible to some sort of advertising.
A few years ago a novel called “Jennifer Government” by Max Barry came out - yes I realize this is an advertisement. It’s a novel of a dystopian future, “1984″ or “Brave New World”, in which giant conglomerates run the world. People are named based on the company for which they work - Julia Nike-McDonalds, for example. The police and the NRA are publicly-traded security firms; and the U.S. government only investigates crimes it can bill for. Hmm - privatization of public services, private security contractors running war zones and parents, God knows why, are already naming their children for corporate brands. Maybe we should auction off the naming rights for Baby D, or shall we just wait until they go to work?
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