Ever see a commercial and thought Jeezus that was stupid, what was that ad agency thinking? Or perhaps between your favorite episodes of CSI you came to the end of a short television ad and thought, What the hell was the point of that?
All of us love it when our commercial breaks are more entertaining or thought provoking than the show we’re watching, but what most of us don’t consider is that television shows are only there so that you will watch those stupid commercials in the first place! The mega huge food and automotive industry basically pays for your nightly entertainment so that you might buy more of their stuff.
Sometimes it works, more times it doesn’t.
A website called After These Messagesis geared towards communications professionals where they can upload and discuss different ads; their effectiveness or lack there of, allows users to ask ethical questions or just plain comment about how shit it really is. You can join the community if you’ve got an email address, though they promise not to use it. Once a piece is reviewed it’s placed on a 3-D axis of heaven / hell and hack / genius.
The site is created by Green Team, an advertising/communications agency that specializes in reaching the “Awakening Consumer, an educated, ethical, environmentally aware and economically powerful audience that uses its purchasing power to influence policy through the brands it supports.”
Finally a group out there that’s geared toward making our commercial breaks seem more like minisodes.