Following the relaxation of Ofcom’s product placement rules, ITV is the first broadcaster to outline plans to fill the brief gaps between their product placements with story arcs and dramatic narratives.
ITV has announced a schedule of what they are calling ‘programmes’ which will be designed to provide a more compelling platform from which to sell you things you don’t need for sums you can’t afford.
An ITV executive told us, “Our research shows that to stop people switching over from our product placements, we need to include some sort of dramatic hook, whether that’s a plucky poor person holding a microphone whilst being berated by a rich person, or a rich person being forced to eat something a poor person would eat, whilst in a jungle setting.”
“Sure, these so-called ‘programmes’ don’t generate any revenue as such, but we feel they might make gullible people continue to watch our channel until the next product placement comes along.”
“We thought long and hard about showing repeated clips of car crashes instead, as people always appear glued to these – but we realised there aren’t enough of them to fill the gaps in our extensive schedule of product placements.”
“So until there is, we’ll try these programme things instead.”
ITV flagship product placement device This Morning was the first to try including elements that might constitute a ‘programme’, broadcasting sofa-based conversations with rich people designed to placate home-based poor people keen to see if something else is on.
“So far the results have been good,” said ITV spokesperson Mike Lee.
“When combined with the new longer six minute advert breaks, there are barely a few seconds in every hour of television in which we can’t bombard viewers with marketing messages.”
“Oh, do you want to buy a new Nescafe Docle Gusto coffee maker? I’m legally obliged to ask you.”
NT.
No comments:
Post a Comment