Recently, I went to the movies with my mom and older sister to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie, which was pretty good. But, this post isn’t about Sherlock Holmes… it is about the ten minutes of pain and annoyance I went through before any of the promos even started.
Now, it has been a long while since I’ve been out to see a movie, mainly due to college and the fact that the universe is loosing all creativity with remakes and sequels that are pretending to be remakes (like Burton’s coming Alice in Wonderland). The last movie I saw was Transformers 2 which instantly made me hate every single person who had anything to do with that movie.
With Transformers 2, there was some commercials before the previews for the newer movies (promos) began, followed by the actual movie. However, there were only two commercials before the movie, which wasn’t too bad. It was a bit annoying, sure. But, it was only two.
But when I sat down to watch Sherlock Holmes, the screen said “Your Feature Presentation” which in my mind was “You sat through over ten minutes of repeating ads. Here’s the movie.” But it wasn’t. I had to sit through yet another ten minutes of commercials. It felt like an hour but it was probably six or so minutes. I saw six commercials. SIX. I almost lost my mind. There was no way to ignore the commercials. They were in your face, loud and irritating.
What has become of commercials nowadays? Why are they stalking the movie theatres and making already a long ten minutes of picture ads even more annoying?
I suppose it’s because of the invention of the Internet. The DVR. The TiVo. Back in the day (some of you youngsters may not remember), we couldn’t skip commercials. You either had to sit and watch, mute them, or leave the room until your show came back on. And we didn’t have the internet to watch TV shows and movies on.
Now, we have the DVR and TiVo, which allows us to just record our shows and watch them whenever we want. This also means having the ability to skip all commercials. The Internet? Although we can now watch shows and movies, there are some sites where, during the show’s commercial break, a 30 second ad will be shown… that you can just ignore by going to a different webpage until it’s over. Or mute it.
How else do you expect people to get customers?
Advertising is the key to selling your product or promoting your business. Whether its an ad in the paper or on a bench, a TV commercial, a billboard on the side of the road, or even just walking down the street handing flyers, it is all advertising and its all needed in order to keep a business afloat.
So, isn’t it obvious why advertising had taken over the theatres?
While watching commercials against my will right before a movie at the theatres is highly annoying, it is necessary to the companies who pay good money to get an ad spot before Sherlock Holmes. What better place to catch large amounts of people then a theatre?
While I understand that advertising is necessary, I have to wonder if there is a less irritating way to advertise a product or company. People don’t want to watch ads before a movie. What’s next? Ads in an elevator? (For all I know, this could be true but it’s been years since I’ve been in an elevator.) I’ve already seen ads in bathroom stalls.
My point is that advertising is everywhere nowadays. You can barely leave the house without seeing some ad nearby. And all this advertising is an annoyance. But, what else can one do? We should find some better way to advertise that doesn’t irritate most of the public. Or else instead of the still ads before any part of the movie begins, you could just have the commercials. ...but that could just be more annoying. I'd rather have quiet ads.
Then again, I'm probably just complaining. Oh well.
~Kratos
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