Too many ads in too many places appearing way too often. Product placement invading content. Messages triggered by RFID chips. Advertorials. Sponsorships. Hype. Spin. Noise. Scott G isn’t the only person who thinks we’ve gone too far. Some consumers are fighting back.

Readers of this column know that I like the communication industry as a whole but dislike its more annoying practitioners. Well, “dislike” isn’t exactly the right word. Loathe is perhaps a better way to describe my feelings towards some people in advertising and marketing.

I refer to those who don’t take “no” for an answer, such as the telephone pitch people who continually find ways around the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNCR). And the recorded political blather that is apparently beyond the reach of the NDNCR.

Or the marketers who think people’s mailboxes are fair game no matter how much they protest to the post office. As well as the crass and gross marketing executives who participate in crass and gross (and intrusive) campaigns in every medium.

Not to mention those people spraying you with perfume in mall department stores (although maybe they’re actually a guerrilla force designed to convert you to shopping online).

The sheer volume of ad messages, paid placements and annoying interruptions is outrageous. I’m not the only one who is fed up with the number of promotional messages bearing down on us every second of every day. People are fighting back.

Consider:

* Consumer-generated commercial parodies

* Mailing back blank order forms found in between pages of magazines

* Mailing back postage-paid envelopes with four ounces of paperclips inside

* Organizing groups to call toll-free numbers of telemarketers

* Creating phony Web sites mocking the real ones

* Picketing outside offices of companies producing offensive advertising

I would write more on this but I’m being called away from my desk. It seems there is an angry mob chanting “Death to Lamisil” outside the CGI animation studio that created that terrible commercial with Digger, the foot fungus. I have to go join them.

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About The Author / Editor:

Scott G owns G-Man Marketing in Los Angeles (gmanmarketing.com), where he consults on marketing and sonic branding, creates cross-media advertising campaigns (print, broadcast, Net), produces radio commercials, and composes music and aural IDs for radio and TV spots. He's also partner in Golosio Publishing(songsandsoundtracks.com). © Scott G. (Note: The opinions expressed by The G-Man do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of this site or its publisher.)
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