> Roy Taylor, the chief executive of Californian-based business Ryff, says his firm is taking digital product insertion one stage further.
> It has developed the technology whereby the product placement is targeted at individuals, and changes depending on who is watching.
A film is supposed to be an experience, and the products/brands within it (whether "organic" or "placed" with the approval of the cast) is part of it. I don't like how they're planning to change it dynamically.
I think it goes far beyond that. Silently tailoring experiences right down to the personal level compromises our shared understanding of reality and fractures society. I believe this kind of thing is responsible, in no small part, for the increased political tensions we see today. How can we have a democracy when everyone gets custom-made propaganda, and no one knows what's being whispered into anyone else's ear?
Yeah, not a fan either. Netflix has done at least a couple 'choose your own adventure' style films. The idea itself is...fun. Maybe I'm boring, but I just don't like it. I want to be told a story, not decide the story myself.
Yeah at present, people can see a film separately but still talk in depth about tiny details of it. When this tech is in place but new some conversations are going to get confusing. Once everyone is used to it it'll be a slight annoyance, and something that some people will actively avoid - perhaps putting premium prices on original copies.
It doesn't get censored, disappeared because the company tries to erase its history (cough Disney cough), and best of all, no ads!
I remember the thing that first drove me to piracy: previews. Nothing like trying to watch a VHS or DVD rental and being subjected to 10 minutes of ads. DVDs were the worst perpetrator, with bullshit unskippable ads before you even got to the menu.
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."
Two ad executives get to talk at length about how masterfully their companies are able to deceive the audience. A brand management professor says it will be great income for the poor TV advertising industry. A media director describes what a great source of revenue this could be for starving bands.
A marketing lecturer warns brands that they might end up in a bad PR situation due to something something scandal.
A film critic says it raises some questions about copyright, and that it might intrude on the work of the production designer.
Not a single word about how the heck this will affect the audience.
Imagine if some inspired tech founder started adding product placement to the paintings in the louvre (which were recently made viewable online here https://collections.louvre.fr/en/).
All the major tech companies are acting like they expect AR to become A Real Thing in the not-so-distant future. Which means non-dorky, decently-functional AR glasses (AR on a phone or handheld game system plainly sucks and everyone can tell that, yet they're all pouring development money and PR into AR efforts)
Things are gonna get much weirder, and it'll be soon. We went from "what's a smartphone?" to "you basically can't function in the modern world without a smartphone" in, what, a little over a decade? We'll see how long this one takes.
There is a lot of cultural history out there just waiting to be monetized. Why limit ourselves to films? How about (e)books and music? Anything in a digital format really.
"Fred Astaire’s daughter, Ava, says she is “saddened that after his (Fred’s) wonderful career he was sold to the devil.” The “devil” in this case is the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. Fred is appearing in commercials in which his dancing props (a mop from “Easter Parade” and a coat rack in “Royal Wedding”) have been computerized and substituted with vacuum cleaners. The blurbs have already appeared in (very costly) spots on the Super Bowl and more are to come"
(the reason it was permitted is because his widow was ok with it - she drew the line at "putting words in his mouth", but a vacuum cleaner in his hands was ok by her)
This idea is actually pretty old. Old episodes of Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life" have a place in the frame for advertisers to be superimposed and swapped out.
Doing this on a gameshow seems strangely acceptable, but don't touch the old films please. Even though old films themselves have product placement (continuing with the Marx Brothers - you can see an old cartoon-style flit gun in Animal Crackers (1930), which was used for one of the earlier product tie-ins), manipulating them seems wrong. People want to experience the movie as it was intended to be...
Then they will just sell DVD players that only use the disc to determine what you want to watch while it silently pulling the newer version from online.
Some company is also digitally replacing billboards/posters/television content with "newer ads" in reruns. I forget who but it was posted and discussed here within the last year.
I definitely saw this in How I Met Your Mother in Netflix, where a movie poster on a cinema wall was (badly) replaced by a newer movie that came out after the show aired.
I wouldn't have minded if it was done better, as that specific example was quite noticable, but it is perfectly possible there was a few more of those that I didn't notice.
That seems less egregious, at least. The TV/billboard was already there in the first place and was already playing an ad in the original version of the film. While I don't like re-writing history like this at all, it's better than digitally adding in things that weren't there to begin with.
I've been interested to see that weed-smoking is starting to become normal where cigarette smoking might have previously in (at least) genre films over the last couple years, because, damn it, it does look cool and I kinda missed it, despite being a strict non-smoker myself (drugs are fine, but I saw too much damage from smoking—I just won't do it, personal choice). By "normal" I mean not used as a way to get the audience to pass judgement on a character, or to give other characters space to criticize them, either, as some cigarette smoking in film had been lately, so it can "just" be cool. I think it's still a big factor in ratings, though, so I doubt it'll become as widespread as cigarette smoking ever did in film. Possibly weed lobbies are paying for this micro-trend, though, IDK.
If paid placements had to be declared, strangely this might not turn out so badly.
"Ah, time to sit down for a relaxing film this evening. Shall we watch the romantic comedy where Coca-Cola paid $20,000 to place a can of Fanta in a sex scene -- everyone's talking about it -- or perhaps this independent science fiction film; it's a new director, no product placement?"
I certainly wouldn't try to change your mind. The question is, what would you like to do about it?
Advertising is the most frictionless way to monetize content. If you own content and want to make money, advertising requires your consumers to pay nothing and install nothing except what they already have.
Everything else is harder to use and less effective. People keep trying and nothing works as well. Users ignore tip jars. They circumvent paywalls. They share passwords. Micropayments cost too much and have too much overhead.
We'd all love a good alternative, but nobody's found it yet. We all think that privacy is the worst, except for all the others. As with cancer, we wish it didn't exist, but that's not effective. We need to research cures.
omg, I remember Fellini was pissed when Italian TV channels (first the Berlusconi private network, then the state TV, too) started to interrupt his movies with Adverts.
Scorsese lamenting the lack of Fellini magic today, and the increase in commercialism:
"“Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode."
[+] [-] Nextgrid|5 years ago|reply
A film is supposed to be an experience, and the products/brands within it (whether "organic" or "placed" with the approval of the cast) is part of it. I don't like how they're planning to change it dynamically.
[+] [-] dTal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axaxs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhillyG|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loceng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxidjhdhdhdhfhf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lupire|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyparadise|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtmetcalfe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bumblelad|5 years ago|reply
I remember the thing that first drove me to piracy: previews. Nothing like trying to watch a VHS or DVD rental and being subjected to 10 minutes of ads. DVDs were the worst perpetrator, with bullshit unskippable ads before you even got to the menu.
[+] [-] brokenmachine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeUt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tobr|5 years ago|reply
A marketing lecturer warns brands that they might end up in a bad PR situation due to something something scandal.
A film critic says it raises some questions about copyright, and that it might intrude on the work of the production designer.
Not a single word about how the heck this will affect the audience.
[+] [-] gentleman11|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intergalplan|5 years ago|reply
Things are gonna get much weirder, and it'll be soon. We went from "what's a smartphone?" to "you basically can't function in the modern world without a smartphone" in, what, a little over a decade? We'll see how long this one takes.
[+] [-] deeblering4|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] braveneww|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorokod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perl4ever|5 years ago|reply
"Fred Astaire’s daughter, Ava, says she is “saddened that after his (Fred’s) wonderful career he was sold to the devil.” The “devil” in this case is the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. Fred is appearing in commercials in which his dancing props (a mop from “Easter Parade” and a coat rack in “Royal Wedding”) have been computerized and substituted with vacuum cleaners. The blurbs have already appeared in (very costly) spots on the Super Bowl and more are to come"
(the reason it was permitted is because his widow was ok with it - she drew the line at "putting words in his mouth", but a vacuum cleaner in his hands was ok by her)
https://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/astaire-won-t-deal-w...
[+] [-] franksvalli|5 years ago|reply
Doing this on a gameshow seems strangely acceptable, but don't touch the old films please. Even though old films themselves have product placement (continuing with the Marx Brothers - you can see an old cartoon-style flit gun in Animal Crackers (1930), which was used for one of the earlier product tie-ins), manipulating them seems wrong. People want to experience the movie as it was intended to be...
[+] [-] tengbretson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pests|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pests|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosperate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lethologica|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8jef|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intergalplan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jka|5 years ago|reply
"Ah, time to sit down for a relaxing film this evening. Shall we watch the romantic comedy where Coca-Cola paid $20,000 to place a can of Fanta in a sex scene -- everyone's talking about it -- or perhaps this independent science fiction film; it's a new director, no product placement?"
[+] [-] brokenmachine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] selfhoster11|5 years ago|reply
- Online privacy is basically dead because of it.
- Consumer manipulation is so well developed that it either borders on, or tips right into mind control territory.
- Targeted for political advertisement, it fractures the society and lets demagogues/morons like Trump and Boris Johnson get elected.
- It's nickling and diming us out of our attention on our smartphones and websites, assuming no countermeasures taken by the end user
- Now, it's threatening to affect artistic and historic integrity of our recorded media by turning into a for-profit Ministry of Truth.
What else is it going to destroy?
[+] [-] jfengel|5 years ago|reply
Advertising is the most frictionless way to monetize content. If you own content and want to make money, advertising requires your consumers to pay nothing and install nothing except what they already have.
Everything else is harder to use and less effective. People keep trying and nothing works as well. Users ignore tip jars. They circumvent paywalls. They share passwords. Micropayments cost too much and have too much overhead.
We'd all love a good alternative, but nobody's found it yet. We all think that privacy is the worst, except for all the others. As with cancer, we wish it didn't exist, but that's not effective. We need to research cures.
[+] [-] fluxinflex|5 years ago|reply
1. Puts ads into old movies, or 2. Fix climate change
what what you do?
I know what humankind would do.
[+] [-] Koiwai|5 years ago|reply
1. Start WWI&II, or 2. Make human interplanetary, AFAICT human only accomplished one of them. Make a more biased point.
[+] [-] oriettaxx|5 years ago|reply
now this.. :(
omg, we will need a movie AdBlocker :(
[+] [-] franksvalli|5 years ago|reply
Scorsese lamenting the lack of Fellini magic today, and the increase in commercialism:
"“Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode."
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]