Watching people watching TV

I’d love to see cameras on ratings boxes so we know what actually happens in an ad break. So this kind of cool.An Australian family sitting down to watch the Ariel Ping Pong Grand Final, the biggest sporting event of the year.

How TV ruined your life?

The ever brilliant Charlie Brooker has recently been exploring what we all know – there is in fact a massive gap bewteen what happens on TV and real life. In ‘How TV ruined your life?’ Brooker deadpans his way through iconic programming to some of the most cringing advertising ever created. Here’s my favourite episode by far.

The Future of TV from Razorfish

I don’t really see analog and digital as being this TV verus the Internet thing. But more related to how different people (mainly generations) think abouth stuff. There so much opportunity in TV that’s it’s only a matter of time before it starts to look more and more like the Internet.

This is great Razorfish presentation from SXSW Festival that essentially shows what TV is probably going to look like once the digital people get more and more involved. It was presented at Cannes last year but in this version Razorfish seem to have actually flushed out how the potential interface might look under various scenarios. (Start from about slide 12)

Tenuous Olympic Links

Despite bucket loads of marketing cash having been spent during the games, I still found myself getting quite bored of brands creating some very tenuous links to their products. But now the torch is on its merry way to London, it’s time for the fallout and the usual debate regarding whether or not brands should a) jump on the Games bandwagon or b) spend money actually becoming an official partner.

Over the last few weeks, it felt like every brand in the world was bombarding me with Games related campaigns. A couple of my favourites were Holden, who had Aussie athletes warming up and stretching on the bonnets of its latest range of vehicles. Then there was Lenovo who found the connection between a top swimmer, their coach, and a splash proof feature on a laptop. But the Gold medal has to go to Visa for this spot which features Derek Redmond and his Dad. It’s a nice message but the never say die spirit has little to do with a credit card. I also love the fact that they are actually proud of making it impossible for people at the Games to use anything other than a Visa card.

 
Then there is the stomach churning stuff coming from Coles. I am probably being cynical and English but there is only so much top and tailing of a commercial break one man can take. I honestly think I have seen this 100 times in the last couple of week. Every time I see it I believe/feel it less and less.

And just to prove my point according to this must read report, ‘The Commercial Games – How Commercialism is overrunning the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games’ there is an official dumpling partner to the games. What were your favourites from the Olympic Games

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