Changes For The Better? Part I

As an old person I occasionally will notice those things that occur very differently now, than they did in the past. Some of the time it is an improvement that actually does make a product better. Most of the time it is just an advertising gimmick to get us to purchase more, or to return to a product that we had been buying in the past, but not anymore. But that is not the problem. It seems that some of the old rules have gone away and the results are very strange. Let us try to remember how it was and see if any of this actually makes any sense.

1. Commercials for competing companies do not come back to back.
How many times have you seen several automobile ads run in order during the same commercial break? It seems that they are the only company who wants to advertise in some programs and so that means that they must follow one another. What position in the set is actually of any value?
2. You do not follow a story about a product with the competitors product.
Watching a couple of programs this morning I noticed some very interesting contrasts. First on a news show they did a story on flavored chicken wings and followed it with an ad for breakfast at a fast food place. The second was a product placement for a toy that was followed by an ad from a competing toy company. In both, all of the effort for the placement of the product was lost because the advertising department seems not to watch the show or see the script ahead of time. That may be good for freedom of the press but it does really make it confusing for the audience.
3. The stories on television and in the press are actually edited and checked for correct facts.
I noticed a story in a local newspaper that had included a picture to illustrate the story. Unfortunately the picture was in error and did not really convey the message of the story. Knowing where the picture was acquired it was apparent that it was laziness on the part of the producing news agency and the newspaper. It resulted in the error that could be confusing to anyone who did not read the story or was not sure of how the system works. I e-mailed the newspaper and was told by the editor that they did not really check the wire service stories and maybe they should. What maybe they should? I have worked at a newspaper and my memory was that every piece of copy was checked no matter what the source. As I said I am an old person and I even remember them checking the stories that came in about major breaking news to see if the wire service was correct. Wire services were always sending corrections that were caused by the pressure of time on reporting. In this case it might have been a current news story but the picture was a file photo that just came from the wrong file.
So why is modern better? Maybe the truth is that it is cheaper to make the mistake and pay for the error, instead of the expense of correcting the error before it becomes public. It is all about “saving money” and that seems to be the bottom line now.