Advertising has gone nuts!

Ok... I have had it up to here (hand is a foot over my head) with companies trying to squeeze revenue by selling ads for every single uncluttered area possible. I'm probably the last person to be writing about this (being employed as a marketing "expert" and all) but it is driving me nuts!

For instance... the other night I was watching my beloved Red Sox on NESN (presented in HD by WB Mason) and could help notice how many advterising messages we are bombarded with while watching sports. The field itself has tons of advertising, of course, which we are all subject to while watching the game on TV. In addition, there is the "TV-only" ads that show up behind the batter's box that are visible while the pitcher is pitching to the batter. Then there is the "Amica K-zone" which shows if the pitch was a strike or ball. (Good thing Amica is making the K-zone possible, because I didn't just watch the pitcher throw the ball, see the ball caught by the catcher in relation to the strike zone, and witness the "ball/strike" call by the umpire. By the way, umpires must just HATE those K-zone things... they make a call and then the networks immediately show the world if the umpire was right or made an error. You've got to think the inventor of the K-zone is sitting in his house every night wondering if the creaking he hears is just the wind or some disgruntled (out of work!) umpire looking to settle the score.) The video scoreboard between innings is sponsored by someone, the running scoreboard banner that shows during the game at the top or bottom of the screen is sponsored, the pre-game show, post-game show, the post-post game show, and now the worst! In the middle of the game - DURING THE GAME - NESN had some quick advertising (I think it was for Budweiser) graphics show on the screen. They were not the classic: "This game is sponsored by... Budweiser (logo flashes), Century 21 (logo flashes), Levitra (logo flashed, I get nauseous)" but an actual 8 second animated ad that in the middle of the screen about 2 seconds before the pitcher threw the ball. The announcers were not even talking about it - it was like some genius in the sales department thought, "hey, we probably have 16 seconds between when the catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher and the next pitch... why don't we try to squeeze in a few ads?" I couldn't believe it. When does a smart marketing executive come up with a way to show 2 or 3 commercials at the same time? I'm surprised this hasn't been attempted... split the screen and show Irish Spring on one side and Honey Bunches of Oats on the other. Wouldn't that work? I guess the issue would be the audio portion, but isn't that what surround sound is for?

Ok... so TV has advertising (although let me point out that we PAY for television... remember the good old days when advertising was necessary for the networks because we got TV for FREE over the airwaves. Cable TV comes around and starts CHARGING us to watch it, and STILL shows advertising) so I guess we have to live with it, but now I'm getting fed up with the Internet. My fantasy baseball league on CBSSportsline.com (not an ad) is a PAY league. What I mean is that we (our league) pay $150 or so to use the CBS online technology to manage our league. So, we PAY to use the website (unlike the many free sites you can use to play fantasy baseball). I was checking my team the other day and saw ads for Holiday Inn ON MY TEAM PAGE! IN THE PAGE! No, these were not banner ads, they were not ads on the side of the screen, there was a Holiday Inn logo about 1 inch (200 pixels) from MY TEAM's LOGO! Are you kidding me?! The Holiday Inn advertising is all over the screen, regardless of what page you are using within your league. Unbelievable. I would expect it from a free site, but not a pay site. You can't get away from these organizations cramming ad messaging down your throat.

The funny thing... while I know Amica is sponsoring the K-zone, there is no chance in hell that I'm going to call Amica for insurance. By the way, I can't explain how funny and ironic I find the Levitra and Viagra commercials. The way they portray these 40+ people trying to get busy makes me laugh. I'm not going to go into it now, but I find the need (and the huge sales) of these drugs simply ironic given how sex-driven males are in their 20's. Ok, enough of that for one day.