I was watching the show Outsourced on NBC the other night. For those of you that haven't seen it, it's a show about an American that gets sent to India as part of his company's outsourcing. The guy runs a call center for novelty products, things like funny t-shirts and gag gifts. Obviously, hilarity ensues when the Indian and American cultures clash, throw in a budding romance and you have the making for...well, mediocre TV at best.
In any case, during the commercial break last week they showed a spot for the new Outsourced shop on NBC.com. They are selling the funny items the characters talk about on the show to actual real life people. They've even made calling into operators fun by making you think you'll possible get to talk to the people on the show (who all play telemarketers). Think about it, it's pretty fucking genius and pretty fucking sickening. Now, NBC can basically run a 30 minute commercial for all the crap on their website and throw in a couple jokes and hot ladies for entertainment. And I bet it works. Wonderfully. At least as long as the show remains somewhat interesting. Now I'm not an idiot, I realize product placement is not a new concept, anyone who's watched an episode of Bones on FOX can see they are trying to sell you midsize SUV crossovers. But even that is once or twice an episode, not the whole fucking reason for the shows being. Now I'm starting to wonder if the show was created solely for the purpose of selling, which I suppose is the point of ANY TV show (which is again kind of a sickening thought). I wonder if the concept started in a room of sinister looking old guys in dark suits thinking about 'how we can make an infomercial entertaining", and the rest of the shows structure was built around that concept?
It's a pretty pessimistic stance to take I'm sure. But I don't really trust ad executives or CEOs anyway. Of course, they do annoying shit like this, so who can blame me.
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