Weekly Analysis 3

Much like an insidious disease, pre-movie commercials have crept into theaters within the last few years. It seems advertising will stop at no length to reach into as many facets of life as possible. This is only natural considering the purpose of advertising is to announce a product to a wide audience and induce a motive to buy.

The placement of advertisements before movies in theaters is a very recent occurrence. I can still remember experiencing the “Fanta, Fanta, get a Fanta!” jingle for the first time before a movie; a part of me most undoubtedly died at that moment. I can understand the need for movie trailers. I can also understand the purpose of television commercials during a show I did not pay for. I cannot, however, understand the purpose of pre-movie commercials playing at the start of the scheduled showtime of a movie I did pay for. It almost seems like a theft of time.

With the theft of time notwithstanding, advertisements exist in many things that have already been purchased. For example, magazines are commonly filled with advertisements. According to Gloria Steinem (1990), advertisements in magazines exist as a way to lower costs to readers. Without advertisements, magazines would have to increase prices to reflect their own costs (such as production, distribution, etc). Another example includes a yearlong experiment New York City underwent that involved embedding advertisement screens in the backseats of 120 taxicabs (Skenazy, 2003). While some of the backseat screens only play looped feeds of advertisements, many are interactive and provide useful information such as restaurant and event listings.

Perhaps it is through my lack of information that I scoff too hastily. Pre-movie advertisements, much like those found in magazines, could very well be a means of reducing theater costs and keeping ticket prices lower. When fake-buttered popcorn fails, advertise.

References

Skenazy, L. (2003). There’s no escape from ads: even in the backseat. In R. Browne (Ed.), Profiles of popular culture. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Steinem, G. (1990). Sex, lies, and advertising. In M. Petracca and M. Sorapure (Eds.), Common
culture: Reading and writing about American popular culture (pp. 123-139). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.