commercials | Multiple Enthusiasms

Maybe it’s because I worked for more than a year as a broadcast production assistant at Young & Rubicam, but I find the relatively new popularity of so-called “book trailers” in the publishing world fascinating. I bunny-quote “book trailers” because really, they’re not actually that, and neither are previews in front of movies. People called them “trailers,” originally, because they actually trailed movies and played at the end.

But then Hitchcock and Psycho came along. Hitchcock didn’t want the ending of Psycho spoiled, so he decided audiences couldn’t walk in halfway through the movie. Before then, one could buy a ticket, walk in to any showing, stick around for the end, and then wait until it started over to catch whatever you’d missed.

I like to call them teasers. Because I like to tease.

So here’s another tease of Meets Girl, a little more elaborate than the first one. Hope you dig it.

Meets Girl Teaser Two

It was nice to see Drew Brees and the Saints go marching into the end zone so many times last night, and terrific to see the Saints’ owner declare that New Orleans is back, just a few years after having been so devastated by Katrina. Part of the reason was that they’re a fine team, but another was the narrative: their city devastated, the Saints nursed their wounds and worked hard for three years to come into a game as underdogs–I think only that Coach guy predicted they might win, and even he said “My head is going with Indianapolis, but my heart says New Orleans.”

And they pulled off a solid victory after a nail-biting first half and then one of the most brilliant second halves in Superbowl history. Seriously, I’ve never seen an onside kick like that in a regular game, much less the big one that counts.

We like our narratives. We always have.

Of course, the other reason everyone was watching the game was the commercials. We love them. While watching the game I heard someone say that half the people tuning in were only doing so for the commercials. And we can learn a lot more from them than simply that Intel has a new processor and Geico still saves you fifteen percent or more.

Multiple Enthusiasms

Infinite jest. Excellent fancy. Flashes of merriment.

Tag: commercials