In the wider context, a lure
needs to attract an audience to ads. Few people seek out ads. Some thing
has to lure an audience to where the persuasive messages will be seen
or heard. Therefore, the function of the various "media" is
to deliver an audience to the persuaders.
Telemarketing Telemarketers -- in their pitch --get our attention by our phone ringing (usually between 5 PM and 9 PM, dinner time and prime time); build confidence by their smooth talkers using sales scripts (and their training and experience in fending off hostile questions); offer benefits to stimulate desires; often use urgency-stressing, and usually seek immediate response, by having us pay by our credit card. Many people hate these hard-sell tactics. They hate being intruded upon in their own house, being interrupted during their meals or leisure time, being subjected to a pathetic emotional plea or a hard-core, high-pressured hard sell. Yet, despite all the complaints against telemarketing, it is a huge
and growing business. The American Telemarketing Association (based
in Los Angeles) estimates that nearly a trillion dollars worth of goods
was being sold by some 5 million callers. Even if these estimates are
high, outside observers agree that telemarketing is very effective with
some audiences. Once people do buy, they're put on an "established
customer" list (also known as a "sucker list") which
will be used again, and sold to other telemarketers. Sponsorship Sponsorship is often cheaper than traditional advertising because very favorable tax breaks and tax write-offs are involved when corporations sponsor non-profit events, such as college football bowl games, the Olympics, marathon races, music festivals, and stock-car racing. For example, in 1971, when TV banned all tobacco advertising, the R.J.Reynolds
tobacco company got around the ban by sponsoring the "NASCAR Winston
Cup series" for the next 32 years, not only with the money for
prizes, but also for a massive image-building campaign (everything colored
in the red-and-white of the cigarette's packaging). "We got knocked
off TV because we were too apparent," [Ralph Seagraves, RJR exec]
said, "We want our message now to be more subliminal." But,
eventually, the 1997 lawsuits against the tobacco industry, outlawed
such sponsorship, phasing it out, partially in 2003, totally by 2006.
Legal scholar Alan Blum noted: "Winston Cup racing was unquestionably
the most cost-effective campaign in advertising history. No brand of
any product got more mileage at a cheaper rate than RJR did with NASCAR."
"What's a NASCAR sponsorship worth?" (Medill News Services, July 13, 2003) "Studies show NASCAR fans are more likely than other sports fans to buy products from companies that sponsor their heroes, said Zak Brown, president of the consulting firm Just Marketing. The companies like the tie-in with the high-speed machines. Caterpillar Inc. hit the jackpot last year when the team it sponsors -- the No. 22 card driven by Ward Burton -- won the Daytona 500. The company received media exposure to an estimated $9.6 million in advertising. Caterpillar's total NASCAR-related exposure last year was worth $36.9 million, according to a Joyce Julius and Associates, Inc. study that tabulates minutes of audio and visual exposure for sponsoring companies, valuing the time in terms of TV ads. While Caterpillar wouldn't disclose how much it pays in sponsorship, Brown said a primary sponsor of of a NASCAR Winston Cup team pays between $10 million and $14 million annually. An associate sponsor spends between $500,000 and $5 million...." In 2003, Nextel (a digital wireless "push to talk" technology company) replaced Winston as NASCAR's overall series sponsor (Indianapolis 500, Brickyard 400, U.S. Grand Prix, etc.) with a $600 million contract for the next 10 years. Starting in 2004, second-generation wireless technology will be introduced by all 4 wireless operators, so there'll be strong competition for customers among them. A Race and Commercials Almost Merge Into One By RICHARD SANDOMIR | the New York Times | February 20, 2007 If the annual whoop-de-do over Super Bowl commercials is based on the search for ads that are humorous, tasteless, memorable or effective, then any analysis of Daytona 500 commercials leads to a calculation of how many drivers were used in them during Nascar’s Super Bowl. No other major sport uses its athletes as much as Nascar does, but then, no other sport is as linked to its sponsors as Nascar is. Of the 43 starters at Daytona International Speedway, 18 appeared in ads that were shown over five hours, and Nascar’s secular saint, Dale Earnhardt, was featured in tribute by his chief sponsor, Goodwrench. If the same percentage of players was applied to another big event, say, Sunday night’s N.B.A. All-Star Game, there would have been ads with 151 of the players on the active rosters of the league’s teams. The All-Stars were not underrepresented largely because 10 of them, from Kobe Bryant to Rasheed Wallace, were part of Nike’s “Second Coming” ad. LeBron James was in another of his Sprite commercials, and Kevin Garnett was in a Foot Locker ad. Dwyane Wade soloed in a Gatorade advertisement, then tag-teamed with Charles Barkley for T-Mobile. But by my count, the 18 Nextel Cup drivers were featured in 18 commercial campaigns (11 of them for Nascar sponsors or partners). Tony Stewart was featured five times (Sunoco, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Subway and Home Depot) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was used heavily by four advertisers (Wrangler, Budweiser, Chevrolet and DirecTV). Kasey Kahne was also a multiple star, appearing for Allstate, Sunoco and Sprint-Nextel, and also for Gillette with five other Nascar young guns, including Carl Edwards. The visual effect is to blur the line between the race and the commercials. Whether the drivers are on the track, offering flooring advice (as Stewart did for Home Depot), munching a candy bar (which Ricky Rudd did for Snickers) or being ogled by a gaggle of 30-something groupies (Kahne’s task for Allstate), there is almost complete Nextel Cup continuity. Perhaps the motivation is to keep fans from leaving during breaks in the racing because they might miss the next ad with Junior, who, like Peyton Manning, has become the most visibly marketed athlete in his sport. What also stood out was the lack of any but white faces in these ads, compared with those during the N.B.A. All-Star Game. Nascar produced an ad that honored its few African-American pioneers, like Wendell Scott, as part of its minority outreach program during Black History Month. Nascar knows it must become more diverse so that some day soon a black driver can kibitz with Jimmie Johnson about Nextel or become a Gillette young gun. The Internet is packed with Web sites that dissect and replay Super Bowl commercials, and USA Today’s Ad Meter has struck fear into some companies that would prefer that their expensive efforts not be panned. It is not surprising that nascar.com is replaying the Daytona 500 commercials and accepting fans’ votes for the best ones. My favorites focused on competitive interplay between the drivers and older people, an apparent appeal to an older demographic than most sports desire. In a FedEx spot, Denny Hamlin (channeling George Costanza) raced a bunch of retirement home residents in their motorized scooters, then griped to an unsympathetic older spectator that one of his competitors elbowed him. In another, Greg Biffle lost an Oreo-eating contest to an old woman. Perhaps the most curious commercial of the day was not presented in a 30-second format or presented as a very long advertisement. But “Chasing Sunday: The Race to Cup,” which was televised on Fox before the Daytona 500, was a 60-minute infomercial about Toyota’s planning and engineering of the Camrys that will race under the banners of three Nextel Cup teams. It was produced by Toyota’s ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, and by Nascar. As a make-believe documentary — heavy with commercials for the Tundra truck — it wasn’t dreadful or nauseatingly adoring. But with the Toyota or Camry names spoken 21 times (modest for a video self-portrait) and witnessed 47 other times (usually on cars or uniforms), the program was one-sided by its nature and offered no competitive viewpoints. Toyota wanted to control the message and paid Fox for the privilege. Toyota’s four entries at Daytona finished between 22nd and 40th, even with stars like Michael Waltrip and Dale Jarrett. Waltrip, a team owner, was a main player in the Toyota infomercial. To Saatchi & Saatchi’s credit, it did not ignore the news that his race team was penalized last week for cheating. Nascar’s high-profile crackdown on cheating, and the advent of a new season, contributed to Daytona’s average viewership Sunday of 17.5 million, the fifth-most-watched Daytona in history, but down from 19.3 million last year. Fox attributed the decline, in part, to the race’s shortest running time in 12 years. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company College bowl games , sponsored by corporations, are a major source of income for colleges: over $202 million for the 2004 New Years Day period. Together with the logo ads (Nike, Reebok, Addidas, Champion, etc.) on the uniforms of players and coaches, many academics and critics believe that the colleges are "selling out" with such big money involved. Amateur athletics -- and our educational institutions -- have simply become another commodity used to attract audiences to advertisers. Stadiums are renamed: The Hoosier Dome is now the RCA Dome;
Jack Murphy Stadium is now Qualcomm Stadium; Candlestick Park is now
SBC Park; United Center (Chicago), Delta Center (Salt Lake); Houston's
Enron Field (until Enron's colossal failure) is currently Minute
Maid Field; the White Sox' Comisky Park is now U.S. Cellular Park and
so on. By 1998, such sponsorship was over a $15 billion dollar business.
By 2003, the Chicago Bears had signed a $30 million dollar 12 year partnership
with a local bank so that their name will be constantly linked with
the hometown football team, always using the phrase: "Bears
football as presented by Bank One." More is coming. While there is some reaction against such commercialism (the Sierra Club helped defeat federal legislation which would have opened the 55 National Parks to sponsorship; and the California Coastal Commission voted against more intrusion), many big cities, such as New York and Chicago, are actively seeking out ways to develop sponsorship of civic functions. Several nationwide commercial companies promote various kinds of adopt-a-highway or adopt-a-public-park in which sponsors get their names posted on highway signs and the community gets income. "Event Marketing" "Event marketing" is increasing: advertisers associating products with concerts (e.g. Ameriquest sponsored the last Rolling Stones tour), sporting events (e.g. General Motors paid NBC $1 billion dollars to buy the ad time as the sponsor of the Olympics in 2000, 2004, 2008) In any pop culture event in the future, in any venue that draws a crowd, expect to see more advertisers, and more sponsors. Movies. For example, Disney movies and McDonald's have a 10 year alliance, with tie-in ads and promotions from both - - luring kids to see the movies, then to collect the toys by buying a meal at McDonalds. Commercializing the schools: in-school ads In September 2005, McDonald's started a nation-wide physical fitness program ("Passport to Play") in cooperation with 31,000 elementary schools with 7 million students. As USA TODAY (9/15/05) reported: " Critics say the fast-food company has no business in gym classes. The initiative comes when 31% of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight or at risk of becoming so. 'It is a travesty to have a PE program branded by McDonald's' says psychologist Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. 'It further commercializes schools and gets the company even more publicity with children.'" In schools, except for Channel One,
most ads are passive (scoreboards, candy and soda machines, team sponsors,
newspaper ads, awards) or involve after-school activities (selling candies,
collecting grocery can labels). But even these relatively passive ads
(such as vending machines) are increasingly
commercializing the schools.
Not all educators see it that way: In September 2003, California Governor Gray Davis signed SB 65 by State Senator Tom Torlakson "requiring schools to hold a public hearing for parents before enacting or renewing a contract with a soft-drink company. Many schools raise thousands of dollars a year by agreeing to sell only one brand of soda in machines on campus.... Torlakson, a former high school health teacher and track coach, said he wants to bring back public scrutiny to a 'corrupt' system in which schools give exclusive rights to sell their brand on campus in exchange for money for athletic teams and field trips. 'The schools have been way too complicit in this,' Torlakson said. 'They are addicted to money and they should get off that addiction.' 'These athletic directors are locked in a corrupt relationship with these companies that have corporate goals that are far different than an educator's goals,' Torlakson said." (Los Angeles Times, Sept.17,2003) Also deserving of special notice concerning commercialism are the various "Educational" films and videos provided free to the schools by special interest groups (such as banks, credit card companies, chemical and energy corporations). Such "good will" gestures not only promote their corporate image, but also advocate their view on social and environmental issues. A previous generation (before the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents) grew up with a cartoon character, "Reddy Kilowatt," in many schoolroom films telling them how safe nuclear energy was to generate electricity. Miscellaneous We are so saturated with advertising that it's hard to name all the
other media, so a brief list will simply suggest the number of ads we
see everyday: Giveaways (calendars, pencils, pens, magnets, key chains,
matchbooks, postcards, trinkets); Clothing (tee-shirts, caps, raincoats)
with brand name or symbol (Nike's swoosh logo) or slogans ("I'm
a Bud man."); Free Samples (in stores, by mail), Free Trials, Test
Drives; Offices of doctors and dentists (toothpaste samples, health
brochures); p-o-p (point of purchase) ads in grocery store aisles, shopping
carts, check-out lines... ad infinitum. |
