I've been batting around a concept for a while: a center where you go and are "informed" about various products. You receive a sales pitch, watch a promotion, or something. Upon leaving the center, you receive a coupon that lowers your ticket prices to an event, based upon your "exposure" to a set of prerequisite products. It's like voluntary commercial seeking. It could become a Friday Night tradition, maybe, perhaps... At kiosks, you can try the products, purchase them, and buy cool memorabilia. You might receive a free newspaper subscription, or you might get a reduced cable rate. In this way, advertisers get to advertise their product while customers can have a little peace and quiet from ads.

Maybe in this way the television commercial could be de-emphasized a little. Many people flip through the commercials anyway, or get Tivo to avoid them- but they are necessary evils because they help along the narrow profit margins in the media. Advertisers ultimately will require some exposure if they're going to continue to sponsor shows in the future, and I wonder if this is one way that they can continue to sponsor profitably and in a consumer-friendly manner. This way, the consumer is directly responsible for seeing their own exposure to the advertisements translated to savings in price. As well, the sponsored ones will have to come up with something good enough to inspire consumers to go to the trouble of visiting the ad centers.
-- polartomato, Aug 10 2002

Market Snapshot http://money.cnn.co..._Entertainment.html
Entertainment Media - Gawd, awmighty - Disney's down the toilet (@ 2/9 price) compared to 15 years ago when they were hot - gee, I wonder how much of a bonus Michael Eisner'll receive this year? [thumbwax, Aug 10 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004]

¯thumbwax: Uh, huh. Picture an eagle swooping down on a mouse that glares back and stands with an upraised middle finger. Last great act of defiance.

¯polartomato: I look for this kind of thing, but I'm the last one to visit auto sales lots or resort timeshare pitches for their freebees -- due to the whole "Timewaste/(Profit - OpporTunity cost)" imbalance.
-- reensure, Aug 10 2002



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