I don't know about you, but for me the Super Bowl was probably the biggest event going on for me this month. I'm sure for a lot of America's men watched the game yesterday and the thrilling performance that the Green Bay Packers displayed over the much more experienced Steelers. I sat in a room sitting on a couch staring at an HD television with probably 15 other people around me doing the exact same thing, the only difference was me and a few others were watching the game for the sake of the game. If you would have asked my best friend's high school sister what she thought about the game, she probably would have responded to the extent of, "I don't really know who's playing, I just watch the Super Bowl for the commercials". If you're a die hard football fan that might piss you off, but to anyone else, that might be a very practical reasonable thing to say. Why? Because our country has become a media monster where things like football give piggyback rides to advertisers and they make a fortune off of it. I'm not blaming them, I'm just suggesting that as big as the Super Bowl is, the commercials might be a bigger deal in the grand scheme of things. The answer to why is because of the increase in convergence culture that Henry Jenkins describes is taking over one step at a time.
When you go to the front page of Yahoo.com, you'll see a few articles on the chaos in Egypt, the outcome of the Super Bowl, and the best and worst Super Bowl commercials. The Super Bowl commercials have taken a life of its own and have become a sort of American tradition to watch all the amazing commercials. Due to the extent and rate of this convergence culture, these commercials stood up and walked right into my iphone, my computer, and my ipad. Every single medium of information, these ads will continue to perpetuate themselves and I see more about the commercials then I do about the game. The brand advertised grows exponentially as these commercials cross mediums and into our brains. Its almost as if you can't run away from them; their following you. But don't be afraid just yet because it hasn't completely taken over our agendas. But at the rate that technology is going, its going to be hard to keep these advertisements at the reach of my entertainment and not thrown in my face any more than it is now.
Advertisers are looking at the technology fronteir with wide eyes because its a phenomenon that no one can predict. Billions of dollars are waiting to be made but no one can directly tell you how that is all going to go down. For the longest time it was simply newspapers and we had the choice to read what we want when we wanted. I think that those times are drifting away from us at a much more rampit pace than ever before. Will advertising across every media medium in the future still give us the opportunity to turn off the tv or put down the paper? I doubt it. The convergence is too fast and we are not prepared for it. Sooner or later the remote will no longer be in your hands.
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Even though I am one of those people who "just watch the Super Bowl for the commercials" I can definitely see the impact they are having on the game itself. Ads aren't just limited to the commercial breaks anymore either. The half-time show was one giant advertisement for the Black Eyed Peas album "The Beginning" which was flashed across the screen at the ed of the performance. I think that this year's Super Bowl was a perfect example of the convergence between advertisements and television.
ReplyDeletePlenty of people (including females) watch football for the game. The Superbowl is the biggest game of the season, but, especially when your team is not in the game, most everyone is guilty of paying special attention to the ads on this specific day. During the four hours that the game goes on, it's a risk just to get up to go to the bathroom, but as you said, the ads can be seen for days after the big game due to other media. It's ridiculous how little football action is actually shown in the total time of the "show" that has become the Superbowl. Good job using this as an example. Brings up a lot of points made about convergence culture.
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