Thursday, October 28, 2004

Paying Twice for a Movie

Why do we put up with commercials in movie theatres? Shouldn't the price of a ticket relieve us of this constant onslaught?

The reason television is free is because we play for it by watching commercials. The reason my softball team got free jerseys is because they had ads on them. The reason I get free e-mail and the use of blogger.com is because they put commercials on the web pages I use. And that's okay. That's the price I'm willing to pay. Nothing in life is free. But I already paid for the movie and I shouldn't be expected to sit through a lineup of commercials before the movie starts. Especially the same lame commercials that I see on TV - for free.

How can we stop this? Well, by fighting fire with fire. Give the advertisers bad advertising. What do I mean? As a marketer myself, I can tell you there's nothing worse than having bad word-of-mouth. Bad reviews can kill a marketing campaign.

So the next time a Ford ad comes on, yell out "don't buy a Ford". If they force you to watch a Budweiser commercial, yell out "don't buy Budweiser". And if you hear someone shouting, "don't buy motorola" join them - even if you want to buy one. Don’t just empathies – mobilize!

If theatre audiences in your community start chanting "don't buy", I promise you that advertisers will think twice. Would you want 200 people chanting not to buy your product? Not likely.

Please help stop the commercials. If you believe that this is the right thing to do, please e-mail this page to your friends...and encourage them to e-mail it to their friends. And above all, don't be shy; yell out "DON'T BUY IT!"

Also visit www.nomovieads.com.

It's time for a change!