In Tom Cruise’s Minority Report, a world where advertising is specifically catered to each individual, was introduced as a slightly disturbing albeit realistic foreboding of what the future might bring. While mildly far fetched at the time, advertising has in fact, taken on equally disturbing qualities. Our internet searches generate a “cookie” of information, creating a profile for our likes and interests and then sends content our way, based on areas of interest.
In a slightly different approach to “getting the word out there”, brands are continuing to push advertising in unconventional manners. In a recent spot related to his new movie, Gulliver’s Travels, Jack Black worked with Orange- a phone company in the UK, to simultaneously promote his film and the brand. In a recreation of the scene where Gulliver has been captured by the Lilliputians, Black looks over and notices that the set of the island, features an Orange Phone Shop. At this point, he begins to go on about the fact that he refuses to do an ad for Orange phones.
Enter confusion. Rather than existing in a world where our “real time advertising cookies” follow us around, broadcasting information on sales pertaining to previously gathered brand proclivities, we instead live in a world where actors advertise brands by pretending to not be advertising them while promoting their own entertainment ventures. I’m a tad perplexed.
Minority Report may have been a bit more Big Brother, but less difficult to wrap your mind around. Mr. Black, thank you for keeping us on our marketing toes!
