No escape from commercials!!

[RedjackRyan]

For CBS’s Fall Lineup, Check Inside Your Refrigerator
By DAVID S. JOACHIM

IN September, CBS plans to start using a new place to advertise its fall television lineup: your breakfast.

The network plans to announce today that it will place laser imprints of its trademark eye insignia, as well as logos for some of its shows, on eggs — 35 million of them in September and October. CBS’s copywriters are referring to the medium as “egg-vertising,” hinting at the wordplay they have in store. Some of their planned slogans: “CSI” (“Crack the Case on CBS”); “The Amazing Race” (“Scramble to Win on CBS”); and “Shark” (“Hard-Boiled Drama.”). Variations on the ad for its Monday night lineup of comedy shows include “Shelling Out Laughs,” “Funny Side Up” and “Leave the Yolks to Us.”

George Schweitzer, president of the CBS marketing group, said he was hoping to generate some laughter in American kitchens. “We’ve gone through every possible sad takeoff on shelling and scrambling and frying,” he said, adding, “It’s a great way to reach people in an unexpected form.”

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.

“You can’t avoid it,” he said. He liked the idea so much that he arranged for CBS to be the only advertiser this fall to use the new etching technology. •The CBS ads are the first to use imprinting technology developed by a company called EggFusion, based in Deerfield, Ill. Bradley Parker, who founded the company, wanted to reassure shoppers that egg producers were not placing old eggs in new cartons, so he developed a laser-etching technique to put the expiration date directly on an egg during the washing and grading process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/business/media/17adco.html?ei=5090&en=9aa212bf4667079a&ex=1310788800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print



Great, now i have to figure out a way to build a commercial skip function into my breakfast skillet..<sigh>

[ponytail]

You could disable the refrigerator light and just remember where you put everything.

Or stop eating eggs. Now they don't just kill you with high cholesterol...they annoy you to death first.:rolleyes:

It's funny -- you'd think if CBS is that desperate to get people watching, they'd try just putting on some decent programs.

[Dee]

George Schweitzer, president of the CBS marketing group, said he was hoping to generate some laughter in American kitchens.

With jokes like those, it would have to be in kitchens of the completely brainless. Or the very drunk.

[Green Monkey]

...in case no one has figured it out, I despise marketing people. Stories like this one should help people everywhere feel as I do. In case you still like marketing people after reading Redjack's post, I ask you to think about who ruined the Internet. Maybe that will help ya on this point. :mad:

GM :D

[DaveM]

I wouldn't mind seeing this sort of thing if the advertiser(s) in question paid for the advertising by subsidizing the cost of the product. I mean....movies use "product replacement" to help pay the bills, commercials used to pay for free television programming (can anyone else remember when cable was going to mean no commercials?), and it's getting difficult to find a web site without ads--but the folks who host the web sites are being PAID by those advertisers or at least given a discount on bandwidth.

So....if somebody wants to put an advertising sticker on a package of hamburger and in so doing take a dime off the cost of the hamburger, I'd have no problem with it. Otherwise, not interested.

While we're on this subject, wouldn't it be nice if the people who put up obnoxious billboards along rural stretches of highway had to subsidize the cost of the road in return for delivering their message and spoiling the view?

[Rkitko]

The only kind of eggs I buy, when I get them at all, are the cage-free hen ones on a vegetarian diet. So I'll never see their advertising!

I agree, Green Monkey. The only thing worse than marketing appears to be internal corporate jargonspeak and architects describing their buildings... I posted something a while back on my livejournal about a new building that the company I work for is constructing in New York:

"The transparent faceted surfaces of the building function as a permeable membrane for shifting qualities of perception and light," says Richard Cook, partner at Cook+Fox Architects. "Embodied within this clear glass skin is something organic in nature, something which echoes not only the kinetic movement and energy from the streets below but also the dynamic and crystalline structure of forms encountered in the natural world."

I ask you, was there anything of substance in that? Qualities of perception? Echo the kinetic movement? Hoo boy, I certainly guffawed at this whole passage. From what I understand, the building is (1)sparkly, (2)clear, and (3)supposed to resemble crystal-like skin. Errr, ok. I say shenanigans. Furthermore, bullshit. But really, what else would I expect from corporate America?

[Rkitko]

While we're on this subject, wouldn't it be nice if the people who put up obnoxious billboards along rural stretches of highway had to subsidize the cost of the road in return for delivering their message and spoiling the view?
Great idea! I'm aware of at least one state that has laws against billboards. Ever travel to Maine? Not a billboard in sight.

[DaveM]

The architect sounds a bit as if he has unlimited access to...certain substances. Honestly, I've heard similar babble from hallucinating psychotics. And of course, people who were listening to the Grateful Dead through headphones.

Perhaps there's a Dead Head architect out there?

"permeable membrane for shifting qualities of perception and light" indeed....sounds like something that would be used to clean a swimming pool.

[Eva]

IN September, CBS plans to start using a new place to advertise its fall television lineup: your breakfast.

That does it! From of tomorrow I'm on a diet! ;)

Eva

[Marcia Drummergal]

I heard on the radio this morning that US Airways will start allowing companies to advertise on their......barf bags! Can't believe it but apparently there are several companies interested......maybe Dramamine?

Marcia :eek:

[ponytail]

They better keep it brief. It's not like you'd have time to do much reading!:confused: