Marketing Hidden Agendas.

Oct 24 2008

Posted by: admin in marketing, media, tags: bias, CBS, Eleventh Hour, groupthink, hidden agenda, media

Do you love to be entertained? I do. Do you love to be lectured to? I don’t, and I’ll wager you don’t either. As a teacher, I learned long ago about the spoonful of sugar method, and how a little bit of entertainment made teaching the hard, boring stuff easier. Like most people, I enjoy watching a little television. Unlike most people, I watch shows with a critical eye. When you do that today, however, you might discover that all is not what it seems to be.

Case in point, the new CBS show, Eleventh Hour. Brought to you by the network that thought it was okay to run a story they knew was a lie, in order to try and keep Bush from winning a second term, Eleventh Hour is the story of a scientist (soulfully played by Rufus Sewell), who solves crimes using…what else? Science. He’s from the “Smartest Kid in the Room” school, but he’s so darned earnest, everyone around him can put up with his idiosyncratic behavior. (Where do I get a job description like that one?) In this week’s thrilling episode (plot spoilers to follow) Our man Doctor Hood is called into to find out why families are lapsing in to paralytic comas, just after eating. This one was a two-fer…the villains were an Evil Large Corporation who put profits ahead of The People’s well-being, and a semi-mad scientist, who was involved in (the horror!) genetically mutating food!

Taking a step back from the needs of the show to paint the good guys and bad guys in stark contrast, here’s the deal. The show portrays the makers of a pesticide as villains, this despite the fact that when they discovered the pesticide could be harmful to humans, they killed the project and had the samples destroyed. Or so they thought. The show pilloried the scientist who invented the stuff, and even had him kill himself in one last, nobel gesutre, allowing the scientist to redeem himself by using his own blood to create an anti-venom for the pesticide. How conVEEENient. I wonder WHO coulda thought o’ that.

Think back a couple of decades ago. That noted chemist and humanitarian Meryl Streep appeared before a Congressional hearing to plead for “the children” about all the harm apple farmers were doing to their apples by spraying them with Alar. Alar got banned. Turned out it was harmless, but some eco-Nazi group with an agenda found some sheeple masquerading as an actress to turn on the charm (and the waterworks) before Congress. That’s bad, but at least there, it was blatant and out in th open. When you put a political agenda into a script and disguise your agenda under the auspices of a TV drama, you cross over the line from activist to brainwasher

Think of this as one big product placement, except that the product here is a political or social agenda. Not concerned? Okay, how would you feel if the scriptwriter created a character in your favorite show that spouted all the political philosophy of the candidate you’re NOT voting for this year, and his portrayal was not a mockery of the guy, but actually made his points, and made them well.

Kinda creepy, isn’t it?

You can’t just blame CBS. (Well, you could, but there’s way more blame to go around, and you’d be missing all the other guys – NBC, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, The Washington Post, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Don’t stop there – you’ve got MGM, Universal, Disney, and so forth.

I, for one, would like to see a moratorium on hidden agendas. When I watch a show, I’d like it to be one that I can watch and enjoy, instead of having to be on my guard as to propaganda.

So what does this have to do with your marketing? Hopefully nothing, and hopefully it never will. There are way beter ways to market your message without resorting to low tricks that border on high treason.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under marketing, media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

http://topwebbusinesses.net/?p=2700 » Marketing Hidden Agendas.

[...] So what does this have to do with your marketing ? Marketing Hidden Agendas. [...]
jweir

I don't know if you realize it or not but CBS is big corporate America. Hum. Ever head of Agent Orange? Thalidomide? The Atomic Bomb? Yup, you are correct. Poor old corporate America. They are just trying to do what's best for us by killing us to make a profit. I hope some instance where a company creates a product and knowingly markets it though it harms people never touches your life. I hope you never have to watch someone you live die because a big drug company chose profit over people. But you need to wake up and smell the coffee. This isn't a hidden agenda. It's a real agenda.
http://captaindigital.net captaindigital

I think you're missing my point. In any society, there will be bad guys, just like there are good guys. Hollywood tends to dumb things down, and make villains out of ALL business, with Big Business leading the parade of villains. For every company that hides the harmful effects of their product just to make a buck, there are tens of thousands that behave responsibly. I have a problem when the media and the entertainment industry gets out their broad brush and paints every company with it.

The fact that you lump together Agent Orange, Thalidomide and the Atomic Bomb leads me to believe that you are confusing slogans and propaganda with facts and logic. The Atomic Bomb was created specifically to kill people. Lots of people. By all accounts, it does a bang up job. In fact, President Truman had a choice to make – authorize an invasion of Japan (which would have meant the loss of thousands of American lives, not to mention thousands of Japanese lives) or greenlight dropping the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As terrible as that was, it caused the Japanese government to immediately capitulate, and saved countless lives on the American side. Based on the way Japan treated our captured soldiers and others (ask the Koreans how they were treated in WWII by the Japanese), I think this was not only the right choice, but a very moral one.

On the other hand, I think it's morally reprehensible when a company knows it's making a product that has some serious side effects (Vioxx anyone?) and hides it to make a profit. That's not just morally wrong – it's criminal, and I'm all for sending the management team to prison for a long, long time. However, there are many cases where manufacturers made products (say, asbestos) and had no clue that the stuff was harmful. Years later, when this was discovered, a bunch of opportunistic lawyers and the media jumped on the cases to vilify and destroy the manufacturers, even ones who stopped making the products, once they discovered they were harmful.

If I had to bet, I'd say that you've never been directly touched by Thalidomide, Agent Orange, asbestos, or a hundred other things we now know are dangerous. But you're quick to judge me, my opinion, and corporate America as the bad guys. Do yourself a favor. Go buy a copy of Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” and read it, cover to cover. Perhaps she will be able to enlighten you as to how our existence is made possible by corporate America, and while there are bad guys – most of corporate America provides an invaluable service to us and the rest of the world. Or simply continue to wallow in your jingoistic existence. Your choice.
jweir

I don't know if you realize it or not but CBS is big corporate America. Hum. Ever head of Agent Orange? Thalidomide? The Atomic Bomb? Yup, you are correct. Poor old corporate America. They are just trying to do what's best for us by killing us to make a profit. I hope some instance where a company creates a product and knowingly markets it though it harms people never touches your life. I hope you never have to watch someone you live die because a big drug company chose profit over people. But you need to wake up and smell the coffee. This isn't a hidden agenda. It's a real agenda.
http://captaindigital.net captaindigital

I think you're missing my point. In any society, there will be bad guys, just like there are good guys. Hollywood tends to dumb things down, and make villains out of ALL business, with Big Business leading the parade of villains. For every company that hides the harmful effects of their product just to make a buck, there are tens of thousands that behave responsibly. I have a problem when the media and the entertainment industry gets out their broad brush and paints every company with it.

The fact that you lump together Agent Orange, Thalidomide and the Atomic Bomb leads me to believe that you are confusing slogans and propaganda with facts and logic. The Atomic Bomb was created specifically to kill people. Lots of people. By all accounts, it does a bang up job. In fact, President Truman had a choice to make – authorize an invasion of Japan (which would have meant the loss of thousands of American lives, not to mention thousands of Japanese lives) or greenlight dropping the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As terrible as that was, it caused the Japanese government to immediately capitulate, and saved countless lives on the American side. Based on the way Japan treated our captured soldiers and others (ask the Koreans how they were treated in WWII by the Japanese), I think this was not only the right choice, but a very moral one.

On the other hand, I think it's morally reprehensible when a company knows it's making a product that has some serious side effects (Vioxx anyone?) and hides it to make a profit. That's not just morally wrong – it's criminal, and I'm all for sending the management team to prison for a long, long time. However, there are many cases where manufacturers made products (say, asbestos) and had no clue that the stuff was harmful. Years later, when this was discovered, a bunch of opportunistic lawyers and the media jumped on the cases to vilify and destroy the manufacturers, even ones who stopped making the products, once they discovered they were harmful.

If I had to bet, I'd say that you've never been directly touched by Thalidomide, Agent Orange, asbestos, or a hundred other things we now know are dangerous. But you're quick to judge me, my opinion, and corporate America as the bad guys. Do yourself a favor. Go buy a copy of Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” and read it, cover to cover. Perhaps she will be able to enlighten you as to how our existence is made possible by corporate America, and while there are bad guys – most of corporate America provides an invaluable service to us and the rest of the world. Or simply continue to wallow in your jingoistic existence. Your choice.
http://bookmarksurl.com/tags/101/200810/product-placement-in-tv.html product placement in tv | Bookmarks URL

[...] … entertainment,” “product integration,” “street teaming,” “buzz marketing,” “positioned journalism,” “secured placement,” and the like. But when faced with intrusive technology for your marketing messages, ask yourself if you’d like to be assaulted by it. Let’s treat consumers like someone we know. Let’s … Marketing Hidden Agendas. [...]