AsTheCrackerheadCrumbles: Commercial Advertisements

Showing posts with label Commercial Advertisements. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Oh Jammit!

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]

[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

It was recently pointed out to me by Lin, of [Duck and Wheel with String] fame and fortune that what I (being a most manly man and all) have always thought of as croaking is actually heard as singing by lady frogs. This has put a lot of things into a clearer perspective unto me. For I have never previously understood why a bullfrog would ever want to fire up a speedboat—let alone ride down the river at (quite literally) a breakneck pace. Well, a lot of very foolish things have been done in an attempt to impress the ladies down through the ages. Sigh.

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

To Scream or Not to Scream?

Sometimes, you feel like screaming.

Sometimes, you don’t.

Yep, narwhals have burrowed into my brain,

AND I LIKE IT!!!

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Simply Sloppiness or Something Sinister?

This is the conclusion to what was started with [Cable Television Ad-whacking], and it ain’t going to be all that. For I just don’t have the energy to get into it as much as I would like to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have heard that far too many times before, but I have a new and improved excuse. For in spite of my very poor normal state of health, I have started working on another top secret project.

No, I am not at liberty to divulge any details at this time. After all, with it being a top secret project, the details are classified, but I can tell you that it could be something really big in a natural sense. Hopefully, the launching will be much sooner than later, and you will most definitely be among the first to know.

Anyway, I can see where cable television ad-whacking could simply be a matter of production sloppiness. For precise timing seems to be an art lost on those now in charge of broadcasting—both in regards to the airing of advertising and programming.

Does having to DVR the show after the one you wanted to record in order to make sure of getting all of it irritate you as much as it does us? Oh, this is not a happy home when we forget to do this and find the recording of our show ending several minutes short of the actual end of the show.

On the other hand, I can also see where all of the imprecise timing issues could actually be something quite sinister. For unless the monitoring is set to keep track of just how many seconds a commercial or program is aired, a two-second (or less) airing of a commercial would count the same as it would for the full amount of time the advertiser paid for. Subsequently, an advertiser might be paying for a full two minutes of commercials to air during a certain show while only actually receiving 64 seconds of total air-time. If the contract is for the airing of a certain amount of total air-time over a 24-hour period on a network, an advertiser could be paying for an hour of total air-time while only actually receiving 50 minutes (and sometimes far less). Hey, I have lost count of how many times I have seen the same two-second start to a DealDash.com commercial on a certain network over the course of a day.

The same principle applies to counting how many people watch what, which is a major factor to determining the cost of advertising air-time. For if the monitoring is set to count those who see even just the beginning or end of a show as being the same as if they watched it all, running shows over into the appointed air-time for another show can greatly add to the viewing totals, which justifies charging more for advertising on shows that 95% of the counted viewers deleted from their DVR after only watching the end of the show they actually wanted to see. Oh yeah, you can put good money on the fact that the cable companies have the same ability to keep track of traffic numbers as internet sites do.

In all fairness, I just do not know—either way. For all of my inquiries concerning timing issues were left unanswered.

Whoa, if my current top-secret project turns out to be as big of a deal as I think it could be, I just might be able to stir up some real trouble later on… Ah yes, a boy must hold onto his dreams…

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Cable Television Ad-whacking

In the Come Monday edition [Digital to Analog], I talked about converting videos digitally-recorded off of the internet to an analog format so that they could be recorded on VHS tapes for my mother-in-law. Well, I also set up the computer we have hooked up to our television to digitally-record shows we have on VHS tapes. This was accomplished through the [Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3] converter.

I also re-recorded onto the computer some of the shows we were keeping on our DVR to watch later (and watch over and over again, in Arlynda’s case). For the Roxio converter can record anything playing on the television it is hooked up to.

Well, it was while editing (cutting out the commercial advertisements) some of those shows that I noticed something that struck me as being rather odd. For at the beginning or end of one complete commercial would sometimes be a snippet from another completely different commercial.

Oh yeah, that had my curiosity piqued. So, I started trying to pay close attention to what was going on during ad-breaks while watching current programming, and I found that what I am calling “ad-whacking” happens a lot. The following video should give you an idea of what I am talking about.

Did you catch the ad-whacked World Wildlife Fund commercial between the Mattax-Neu-Prater and CNN ads? It was very quick. So, I made the following video with the speed slowed way down after showing the sequence again at regular speed.

I wound-up recording 271 ad-whacks in anticipation of this becoming a big deal. The following ad-whack of a Gerber Life Insurance commercial is a more typical example than the WWF one.

Alas, all of the hours I spent recording and editing ad-whacks appear to be for naught. For I have yet to receive a single response back from the advertisers I attempted to contact. Oh, and the ad-whack examples I had for them were all documented by showing on the screen the time, date and what show it occurred. The advertisers I attempted to contact were Gerber Life, Rosetta Stone, Stamps.com, Southern New Hampshire University, The Art Institutes, TrueCar.com, uSell.com, World Wildlife Fund and Zulily.com, and there are many more I did not try to contact after getting the hint.

So, is it that those businesses just do not care about their commercials being ad-whacked because of having so much money to spend upon advertising or is it just part of placing ads on television? After all, time must be made for local advertisements, and ad-whacks usually happen before or after a local commercial is inserted into the national mix.

I do not know. For all of my questions concerning what is going on have been left unanswered by those who just might know, and I have grown tired of pursuing the matter.

I stopped recording ad-whacks last summer and returned to zipping through commercial breaks as usual. I still notice an ad-whack here or there every once in a while, and I have been seeing it happen more frequently on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC lately. Whereas, I rarely caught an ad-whack on the main network channels back when I was trying to pay close attention.

What came as quite a shock to me is that ad-whacks appeared to happen the most frequently on CNBC. For I would think that a business channel would be tightly focused upon their own good business practices.

In all fairness, it may not be CNBC’s fault. For it may very well be more in the hands of the individual cable companies and local television stations to produce advertising blocks.

Back when I was still trying to be serious about pursuing this, I asked my sister-in-law (with DirecTV) to record a six-hour segment of Animal Planet, which is a channel we also have access to through Mediacom Cable. I also recorded the same six-hour segment and then compared the advertising blocks. What I found was that when the advertising blocks occurred was set by the network while the content varied between what was broadcast on DirecTV and Mediacom. Most of the blocks had the same commercials at the same time, but different ones were whacked at the different times, with the biggest difference being virtually no local advertising on DirecTV. Their ad-whacking involved inserting commercials for other programs on DirecTV while Mediacom had a lot of advertisements for local businesses.

Whether or not ad-whacking and some other things are simply a matter of sloppiness or something sinister is set for next week. I can imagine you being hardly able to wait—right?

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Egregious ESPN Mascot Abuse

Yeah, it is common knowledge that birds are attracted to clear glass like moths to a flame, and here ESPN has school mascots roaming corporate halls lined with clear glass partitions. Okay, there is some mention of frosting the glass during the meeting, but will they actually do it? No, I do not think they will, but I hope I am wrong—for the sake of little birdies watching the world over.

***NOTE***

Shadow is the rather large orange and white cat lying next to Grayson in the series image above, and Arlynda found him dead late last Saturday afternoon. We had been hunting for him all over the house for several hours, and it looked like he had died in his sleep 10-12 hours before he was found. Since he was just six years-old and appeared to be in perfect health, we have no idea what happened. No, there were no poisons for him to accidently get into. Be assured that we are still in shock.

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]

[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Stop Moosin' Around!

Why do you let that keep happening to you? Think of your family. People talk. It’s embarrassing!

***NOTE***

Today is my son’s (Calvin) 26^th birthday.

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

HoF Ads: No Hogriders Needed

This weekly series will feature ads that I consider to be the very best (in one way or another). Please do not hesitate to tell me about your favorite ads, and if you have some (good) taste, I just might add yours to the list.

Please Also Visit:

[Arlynda Lea]

[FishHawk Droppings]
[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]

TMI?

The purpose of this site has changed somewhat. For it was originally meant to help clear-up much of the confusion that now exists concerning our Heavenly Father and the righteousness of all of His most awesome ways, especially in regards to the very close and personal relationship that we can have with Him in this day and age. It still is, but in a much more subtle way. Now, if any of this has you curious, please visit FishHawk Droppings, which is where all of the books that I have been given to publish by our Heavenly Father (so far) have been placed in the order that they are meant to be read. By the way, the definition of a crackerhead is someone, who crumbles under pressure, regardless of whether real or imagined.