Review 2006

Anonymous commenter asks:
I only thought of this last night, but I'd be interested to read your musings on the adverts shown on the programmes you watch a lot. There is a point. They must be aimed at a certain type of audience, the people they expect to be watching, but they're often wildly off. What's sort of person do they think you are, and what can be the logic behind those decisions?

Review 2006 About the only television programme I've seen lately in which I've actually sat through the ad break was the excellent Dinner For Five, a chat show in which actor John Favreau and a bunch of his Hollywood pals eat what looks like good food and tell each other anecdotes about their careers (or rich and famous lifestyles). Last week was the Daredevil special (signaling how old these programmes actually are) which was filmed just before Ben Affleck and that Jen (Garner) joined together and you could already see some of the chemistry. Predictably it's in a post midnight slot on a Sunday on ITV4 and you can imagine the kinds of adverts that being shown with it.

The best of a meager bunch (which also include Dove soap oddly enough) is for something called Textmates, an obvious development of chatlines for the mobile generation. The process seemed to be that a 'user' would text the number given and receive a reply from a 'worker' who is waiting to receive their text, with conversation of an adult nature proceeding from there at 75p a pop. It seemed to be that by reducing the communication to just text, taking away even the voice, it was entirely possible that the replies could be a pre-prepared set of responses being sent back from a computer, with human, monkey or artificial intelligence at its heart. Would the 'user' even care?

According to the break buffers Dinner For Five is sponsored by an online casino company which given Ben Affleck's success at the poker table seems like undoubtedly unplanned but perfect product placement. As far as I could see this was probably not the right set of ads for an audience that would be tuning in to hear Kevin Smith telling his (undoubtedly hilarious) Page Six Smith slams Tim Burton story for umpteenth time. But since this was probably the only time of night that the proprietor of this company can actually advertise his wares, I've a feeling that ITV are actually targeting the advertising at the timeslot rather than the content. Similar adverts appear across the channels at that time of night and it's a slot that major companies tend to shun because of the tiny audience watching then.