I think the general population vastly underestimate the power of advertising. How many people find themselves using social networks and search engines everyday, but have never thought to question why they are getting this stuff for free? That’s right kids, every click you make is mined and sold on for profit.
Last week, Universal Music Group, in collaboration with Mirriad, announced they will now allow advertisers to embed product placement in existing music videos on YouTube. These can then be swapped out for different brands and products once a campaign is complete. “Mirriad chief executive Mark Popkiewicz said integrating ads into music videos was a solution to “ad skipping”, where viewers can choose to avoid online ads that usually appear before or after music videos”. The customer base are showing they do not want to be sold to when watching media content, and in retaliation, the advertisers create a sneaky new way to do just that. One small step for advertisers, one giant grasp on the minds of mankind.
However, forcing these advertisements on consumers is only one side of the issue this represents. Taking a leaf out of George Lucas’ book, Universal are now striving to change pieces of ‘art’. Imagine if an art gallery started renting advertising space inside renaissance paintings – there would be outrage. I mean it’s pretty hard to qualify an Avicii music video as ‘art’, but there will still have been a huge amount of time, work and creative personnel invested in creating the original. Changing a piece of creative work, no matter how subtly, to sell advertising space is pretty uncool in my books.
Just another huge corporation becoming an advertising machine? Although I appreciate the creative approach and use of technology, I believe this opens up an even darker realm for advertising. With both brand new and existing media becoming fair game for marketing products, where does it stop? Wait until the full version of Oculus Rift is released; see how long it takes before Facebook try to advertise straight into your retinas.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a4025fc-4596-11e4-9b71-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3FDGvciZD