Rob's Surf Report

Three reasons why late-night television advertising is for suckers

What would you do to get people to visit your blog?

Would you advertise on late-night television as though you were Billy Mays or Jack Lalanne? Could your blog be the next Sham-wow?

Personally, I think it would be a colossal waste of time and money to record an infomercial extolling the many benefits one may glean from reading your blog, and then sandwiching it between decades-old reruns of The Fall Guy, Highway to Heaven, Little House on the Prairie, or what ever passes for late-night television these days. Why is it a waste? Because. . .

A: nobody will see it.

Late-night TV is dead – it just doesn’t know it yet. Broadcasters may as well schedule that time for educational programming for insomniacs who can’t afford Netflix.

B: nobody who does see it will care.

If you’re up that late watching TV, I doubt that you care to be on the Internet anyway. Otherwise, that’s where you would be, am I right? That goes back to reason A.

C: if you really want to try, you’ll be forced to prey upon the insecurities of your audience.

Traditional television advertising is based upon the assumption that your product addresses a need. The late-night demographic falls under the assumption that those needs are to be popular, to be good-looking, lose weight, make more money, or maintain an erection. In other words, they pretend that they want to address the issue that keeps you up at night by selling you a magic bullet cure, and in the process they have to convince you that you’re a fat, ugly, impotent, poor slob. Is that what you would do to your audience?

It’s probably better not to be that person.

Personally, I would prefer to be an honest blogger than waste time and money trying to convince the 2% of Americans who still watch late-night television that I’m the unknown blogger who made WordPress such a star.

This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt.

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Published by Rob's Surf Report

Rob lives near the geographical center of the North American continent with his wife, daughters, and one very needy cat. Most days he's a member of the law enforcement community, and tries to keep himself sane by making himself both stronger and more creative. His big plan is to find a way back to the coast and to stay there for good so he can surf the livelong day.

5 comments

  1. Excellent post! I wonder what you’d think of late night UK TV? I tend to have the TV on and surf at the same time, but I also have Netflix and Lovefilm and ESPN, like a good performing seal. So late night TV is not TV.

    Do they still do reruns of those shows in the US!?! Thanks to your last sentence I now have that theme tune stuck in my head and now I have a headache, if only I watched adverts then I’d know of a magic bullet which cured this sort of thing… okay, not a bullet, that might make the headache worse… 😉

    Reply

    • I’ve never seen late-night UK television before. When I was just out of high school probably about 15 years ago or so… Those were the shows that they were running late night in Detroit. I think now it depends on where you are, whether the stations plays those shows – I imagine now it’s something like Married with Children and the Golden Girls playing late night nowadays!

      Sorry about the headache, but I’ve for the same song stuck in my head! 😉

      Reply

  3. Jolly well said, Rob: I heartily concur with your approach. It is funny, beautifully expressed and so damn true! Alienora

    Reply

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