Published Sep 2, 2005

It’s always difficult when two important, beloved parts of one’s life conflict. Well, that time has finally come for me. While watching Cold Case, I realized: I should’t let myself fast forward through TV ads anymore. It’s not just fun anymore; now it’s education.

One of my classes this term is Advertising and Promotions Management, which concentrates on planning and balancing the mix between ads, promotions, personal selling, and PR when trying to increase or create sales for a product. The prof has lots of great, practical experience, and I feel like I’m going to get actionable information out of every class.

The problem is, we watch ads critically at the beginning and the end of every class. And I’ve noticed that I’m weaker at my critical review because I haven’t been watching ads for the past year and a half, which means that I lack a basis for comparison.

So that means no more fast-forwarding. Sure, I’ll skip promos, or old ads, or ads I’ve seen a million times, but, from now on, I watch what’s new, be it program or promotion. Hello three ads in an hour for the Ford Freestyle (for some reason, I assume everyone in a Freestyle is going commando. Heck, that’s probably their demo).

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