Absolutely!

In a New York Times Magazine article about the new-found popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (aka P.B.R.), we read:

The single key text in Stewart's [Pabst's marketing manager] codification of the meaning of P.B.R. is the book ''No Logo,'' by the journalist Naomi Klein. Published in 2000, ''No Logo'' is about the incursion of brands and marketing into every sphere of public life, the bullying and rapacious mind-set that this trend represents and evidence of a grass-roots backlash against it, especially among young people. Klein's view is that this would feed a new wave of activists who targeted corporations. Stewart's view is that the book contains ''many good marketing ideas.'' He says it ''really articulated the feelings, the coming feelings, of the consumer out there: eventually people are gonna get sick of all this stuff'' -- all this marketing -- ''and say enough is enough.''

This story comes out right in the middle of baseball season, which allows us to rant about an extremely irritating development: The presentation of ads during televised baseball games - when the "long shot" from center field is shown. There, the pitcher winds up, throws the ball, and the trajectory of the ball crosses in front of an ad as it moves toward the batter. This unnecessary distraction used to be confined to the American League (Seattle was the first, if memory serves), but soon afterward all teams were doing it. For a while the Premium games (playoffs, World Series) were exempt, but they succumbed as well. From our point of view, it makes the game totally unwatchable. In no other sport (auto racing excepted) are we aware of a case where an ad is placed so the viewer must see it while following the movement of a ball, puck, or player. How much money is raised by baseball's every-pitch-you-see-an-ad situation? We suspect it's pretty small. And all it does is ruin the game.

posted by Quiddity at 6/22/2003 06:02:00 AM