Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Culture vs advertising

In its way, it is the fundamental question in the field of the 
arts and entertainment: is its purpose the dissemination of 
culture or the dissemination of advertising?

In Singapore, feature films in a cinema are supported by a "first 
half" consisting entirely of commercials. People hurry in to the 
cinema so as not to miss any, and are excited when a new one 
appears. The ads are part of the program, a capitalist's dream.

As anyone who has been to a multiplex (cinema complex) lately can 
tell you, we are fast approaching the same dismal situation here 
in Australia.

A scant four decades ago, the idea of commercials on a public 
broadcaster was anathema; anything that could be interpreted as 
an ad for a product was ruthlessly excised from programs on the 
ABC. Now public broadcaster SBS is awash with commercials, and, 
if Howard is re-elected, how soon will it be before the ABC is 
forced to follow suit?

For capitalists, with their imperative drive to increase their 
rate of profit and to find new sources of profit, anything that 
can attract the attention of large numbers of people (but which 
is not then used to advertise something) has "wasted its 
potential". Just as a large blank wall on a busy street or an 
unimpeded verge on the side of a main road is no more than an 
"ideal site" for an advertising billboard, so the mass media too 
becomes an adjunct of advertising.

The mass media, the most potent educational and cultural tool 
ever devised, has been hijacked by capitalists who will use its 
power and verisimilitude as an aid for selling cars, mortgage 
scams, soap powder, etc, etc. The capitalists see nothing wrong 
in this, for their credo is that anything that helps business is 
for the public good.

This identification of their interests with those of "the 
community" — or even, God help us, "the nation" — is very 
convenient for capitalists. It actually allows them to disregard 
the interests of the community (or the nation) totally, and to 
use their power and influence for what really concerns them: 
increasing their profits.

Although much of the merit of cultural media such as films and 
television has been largely subsumed by salesmanship, all is not 
yet lost. Capitalists may think that an evening of half hour 
"infomercials" constitutes some sort of ideal television, but the 
public does not.

One such recently released "program" comprising a 30-minute hard 
sell for a tediously boring and shockingly over-priced exercise 
device for strengthening your abdominal muscles (your "abs", 
whose "firming up" will apparently improve not only your 
appearance but also your health and your sex life).

Despite the relentless "dumbing down" perpetrated by commercial 
television, most people demand something more stimulating than 
infomercial fare.

To the chagrin of the capitalists, to draw people to watch their 
TV channels or visit their cinemas still requires actual movies 
and television programs. For their part, the people want ideas, 
emotion, characters in conflict.

They want to be made to experience anger, laughter, pity, to 
enjoy the clash of ideas expressed through character and action. 
In other words, consciously or otherwise, they thirst for 
cultural enrichment.

Advertisers are aware, too, that new media technologies are 
shortly to be upon us that will allow viewers to download their 
favourite programs without any commercials.

What then is your capitalist to do? One answer is to incorporate 
the sales pitch into the movie or TV show.

This idea is not new. It is basically a new form of an old money-
making idea that's been around the movie and TV business for a 
long time: product placement.

It used to be a means to raise some extra dosh from a breakfast 
cereal manufacturer by showing his product up close in a scene 
over breakfast, or from a car maker by having lots of close-ups 
of his latest model, and that still goes on. In fact, it's bigger 
than ever.

An estimated $120 million was spent on product placement last 
year in Australia alone. Movie producers are encouraged to 
contact product placement specialists while still at script 
stage, so the experts can assess the film's "placement 
opportunities".

But, compared to the new, sophisticated methods of producing what 
capitalism calls "branded entertainment", the old product 
placement deals are crude and obvious. Today, the very programs 
themselves are conceived with an eye to servicing specific 
sectors of the market.

How do you, for example, increase sales of male toiletries, 
cosmetics and fashion aids? You conceive a program called Queer 
Eye For The Straight Guy.

This program shows what a powerful tool it can be providing the 
producers don't succumb to overkill and show a particular product 
too often. In US it has not only boosted sales of the brands 
featured on it (old style product placement) but has been 
lucrative for the entire "men's grooming category" (new style 
placement). According to Fortune magazine, on the day 
following a Queer Eye episode men in the US are five times 
more likely to go shopping than women!

That's worth real money, and one result is that those in the know 
expect, in the words of Grant Hay from product placement outfit 
In Shot, "more brands will become content producers themselves".

Art and culture? Forget it: this is business.