| Wednesday, January 10, 2007 |
02:05 - I'll see your irony and raise you zincy
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What with those fourth-wall-breaking Alltel Wireless ads featuring caricatured stand-ins for the mascots of the various other cellphone carriers, and the Pizza Hut ad with the delivery guys from Domino's and Papa John's shamefacedly eating the Pizza Hut pizza—I find myself wondering if there are any rules about this sort of thing on the books, either legally or as part of the policies of the cable companies' ad-space market? You know—an ad campaign that specifically plays off of some competitor's ad campaign?
Suppose, for instance, that you saw one of the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" commercials. Then, immediately afterwards, suppose you saw an ad for some PC company, looking almost the same, starring very similar-looking "PC" and "Mac" characters (or, hell, even the same actors—why not?), but this time stumping for the PC side?
Or, say, if you had a Jack in the Box ad with Jack making fun of other fast-food places' burgers, followed immediately by a Burger King ad featuring the King beating up Jack? Or a Zune ad touting the 3-plays-3-days thing, followed immediately by an iPhone/iPod ad making fun of limited wi-fi sharing and talking up full Internet connectivity and the like?
There's the question of trademark infringement, sure—you can't directly use another company's characters or mascots without a big disclaimer (as the Alltel Wireless ads demonstrated). But if the basis of the ad is just a general concept, something that's easily recognizable and easily mockable—why wouldn't an ad agency want to make an ad that deliberately plays off someone else's campaign, and then specifically buys space so as to have their ad appear right after the competitor's, so the viewer sees a direct marketplace battle taking place right in front of him, in the interstices between TV show segments?
There's the argument that a cable company that allowed companies to do this sort of thing to each other wouldn't be in the business of selling ad space much longer after they tried it, as the targeted competitor stomped off in a huff. But I don't know, honestly. I tend to think that sort of thing would make for great watching, and it'd bring in the eyeballs that the cable company and both advertising parties need. It would have the look and feel of a political debate, an argument-and-rebuttal dialogue taking place during every commercial break. It'd be real live entertainment, and no less balanced than it is today, where one company's ads might only appear on different channels or in completely different media from its competitors.
Why hasn't this technique become an established, mature art form over the decades? I can't bring myself to think it's just because nobody's tried it, fearing the wrath of the cable companies and the yanking of their advertising space. Are there laws about this sort of thing? Or is it just professional courtesy?
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Brian Tiemann
