Movie Advertising

I remember the outrage 30 years ago when we experienced the first ad before a movie. People booed. The instinct was to walk out in protest. However, we understood that if we did not act as a unified voice against the commercial invasion of our entertainment experience, we would not be heard.

Now, we have come to expect this intrusion, and just mutter under the din of the deafening sound system, resigned to the feeling of powerlessness because of the constant onslaught of marketing messages in every area of life. We lament that there are very few physical or virtual public spaces for civic discourse. Finding such spaces can be a surprise and a welcome retreat from the din of modern life.

The movie theatre is a microcosm of the world of branding and marketing campaigns, devices and user experiences that are designed to consume our time and attention. We have willingly become hosts of an alien parasite that has turned us into the less-than-human facsimiles of human beings.