Now that we’ve topped off lunch with some Planters cashews in the convenient 16 ounce canister size and removed it from our desk, we can discuss Gail Collins’ recent New York Times OpEd (2/28/09 edition) on the practice of imbedding commercials into broadcast programming. She referred in particular to one character in a soap opera giving some Campbell’s soup to another character (which reminds us that we enjoyed a can of Progresso soup for our own lunch). Admittedly, the dialog Collins quoted hardly seemed necessary to advance the plot. She also noted a Las Vegas newscast with McDonald’s coffee containers on display.
RBR/TVBR observation: It’s easy – excuse us while we take a sip from our 12 ounce can of Pepsi One – to make fun of this practice. But what really is the big deal? For those of us with a cynical streak, the soap dialog is actually kind of funny in an MST3000 kind of a way. And if it keeps the programming coming for free, well, that’s the whole point of advertiser-supported media, is it not?
