THE TELEVISION WILL NOT BE REVOLUTIONIZED
One of my favorite books ever is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I know it’s a ‘look-at-me-I-read-books’ cliché to say so, but look at me! I read books!
In this book, DFW describes the decay of television as a popular entertainment medium. The increasing desperation involved in advertising to a desensitized and shrinking viewership leads to commercial messages which are horrifying and disturbing to witness. The networks, facing massive flight among their viewership, are at the whim of advertising dollars, have no choice but to air the most excruciatingly unforgettable ads. It seemed plausible to me at the time that competition between marketeers would could lead to drastic measures undertaken to make an impression, any impression at all, in the supersaturated brain of the consumer.
This is not the point of the book or “what it’s about” or anything, it’s just a cool idea that stuck with me. I thought of it when I read Hugh Macleod’s (and then Jeff Jarvis’ and Seth Godin’s) post about McDonalds endorsing “brand journalism”, as opposed to “one big execution of one big idea.”
What is ‘brand journalism’? Well, it’s like a ‘brand narrative’, or a ‘brand chronicle’. That sure sounds exciting, doesn’t it? We want collaborative brand storytelling, not your fascist, hegemonic “universal message concept”! Lets all clap our hands excitedly over a fantastic new era of corporate intercourse! Yay!
“We don’t need one big execution of a big idea,” Larry Light, McDonald Corp.’s chief marketing officer. “We need one big idea that can be used in a multidimensional, multilayered and multifaceted way.” OIC. There’s still one big idea. It’s just being used in a multitude of ways, instead of only one way. That’s a good idea, I guess. A better idea might be to throw out the ‘idea’ idea entirely.
It seems to me that the opposite of what DFW envisions is happening. The modern philosophy of advertising is (or should be) tending against “monolithic” (i.e., televisual) campaigns. As people drift away from advertising-sponsored network tv, (which is a technological inevitability, in my opinion), it’s the networks themselves who are becoming increasingly perverse in their attempts to lure audience attention and thus preserve their value as a portal into the public consciousness.
When commercial-supported tv is turned off, marketers had better learn how to have a conversation. The bloggers mentioned above have interesting things to say about how this could work.
PS. I can’t wait to read DFW’s new book, Oblivion.
PPS. Whoever borrowed my copy of Infinite Jest five years ago should return it >:(