Battle for the eyeballs

There was a time when I used to enjoy seeing advertisements in the Television. I thought, that is one of the most creative of modern professions. But, today, I am squarely blaming the TV ads as the reason for many of our evils. I am still not that much against advertisements in the print media, but the visual media is too powerful and influences the thinking of an entire nation.


Read an article on Advertisement and Contents in our media. See this quote :

As the media becomes more dependent on advertising, advertising becomes less dependent on the media. The final hopes of readers paying for content are fading.

Advertising has long paid for content and made it free. Now, it has grown to a stage where it even determines the content.

Promotion of a product is one thing. Everyone is bound to do that. But, TV ads are also done on a massive scale and hence social responsibility has to be there. If we are peaceful in Gudalur, it is because we do not watch TV ads day in and day out.

And, there is big big money involved. To the extent that they are dictating policies of the government, the forms of entertainment, who wins and who loses and what not. The entire T-20 cricket format was designed to suit TV ads. No other game can have scope for so much of advertisement but cricket. Between each ball being bowled, there is an ad; there is a message that pops out from the corner, one cartoon character jumps up and down, asking us to drink something or use a particular company's mobile phone.



Then, best batsman of the day, best bowler, best catch, best runout, best shot, most sixers, most boundaries, most wickets, man of the match, man of the team, man of the over, man of the first hour, second hour... each sponsored by companies. As someone said, there is actually a battle for the eyeballs ! Catch our attention, get into our minds and sit there ! The violence shown in the TV and its influence on our kids is a well-documented fact in our TV controlled life ! (Saw a terrific - but, frightening film called 'Wag the Dog' recently. More about it separately).


While thinking about this, I was wondering there are many things I am also actively involved in communicating to lots of people. Health messages, Just Change posters insisting on trade justice ... I may justify, saying that they are socially relevant messages !?

And, in this blog also, there were Google ads. I am thankful to Google for hosting my blog free; grateful to them and all that. But, ads ? Am I also fighting for the eyeballs of the few who visit my blog regularly ? I may justify saying that they are only text ads, they are unobtrusive, etc. But, I guess, they should be off.

So, I am taking the google ads away from the blog. I am sure, no one will miss them. Dilbert cartoon strip is not an ad. So, it can continue I think.