So, does anyone else feel media has been manipulating you to watch it? Do not get me wrong, I enjoy a good twist every now and then, but there are twists, and then there are lies. To put into an example, let's say you get excited to see a sequel to 'Harry Potter', and the marketing heavily shows off Harry. He's in all of the trailers, mentioned heavily in the description, and even dead center in the poster. You go to see the movie, and..... Harry is killed off in the first scene and the rest of the movie focuses on some new students at Hogwarts. How would you feel if you saw that?
Now, a lot of this tends to happen as a result of studio execs fearing audience interest. Take the movie 'Troll 2' for example.
(I do not own this image, it is property of the rightful owner.)This is not a sequel to the original 'Troll', but it was kind of turned into one because the higher ups feared it wouldn't make enough money. (To be fair, they weren't wrong to fear that. Watch clips of the movie to know why.) However, this does show a problem where one could profit off tricking audiences.
Now, there is one argument that I would like to bring up. 'Well, it never said 'so and so' on this poster, so maybe you shouldn't complain.' To that I say, you're right in some cases. Again, if the main use of marketing is focused on attracting the audience to what they want to see, only to have it be taken away, I can not blame people for being upset. Especially if what the actual product was focusing on was featured very little in marketing. Also, so keep in mind that this type of manipulation could be used to dodge certain problems companies could face in the future.
Think about it like this; you want a fast and tasty meal; the sticker on the box says it will take five minutes to make; the back of the box has several instructions you need to complete before the five minutes. All in all, good design and media should avoid lying to the customer to produce cash. It never works out for anyone in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment