TV and ads in Mexico
Since the project where I am living in Mexico does not have very good TV reception, I have barely watched Mexican TV programs - mostly I have caught glimpses in waiting lounges at bus stations and cafes and similar. Although every time I´ve been watching, there has been something new and “interesting” to reflect upon. My first encounter was in a bus station in Mazatlan, where I saw a sort of “talkshow” program that included a plastig surgery operation performed live in studio, with the host looking quite green in the face, chatting nicely with the plastic surgeon. The girl, who was a normally nice looking girl, was told that she looked much better afterwards…
Later, I came across a show that seemed to be a cooperation between Sony Handycam and Gilette razors, where different youth competed to make small TV ads for those two products using of course, Sony Handycams… I didn´t stay around to get the whole background, and some of the ads were quite funny (although there was a freaky one involving Michael Jackson and some small children), but it was still a way of mixing commercial content and editorial content that I am not very used to. (Then again, some people have suggested that with the coming shifting of TV content to computer networks, using for example Bittorrent, and people skipping ads with their TiVo´s, networks might be forced to change their revenue models. In a way this resembles the beginning of soap operas, where only one company was sponsoring an entire show (I would like to give credits here, but I forgot where I read it).
I don´t think I´ve ever been in another country with as much political advertising, especially on walls, although very few of them have any real content, it´s only a name, or a picture and a little tagline “Ruben, Governador”, “Ruben, muy trabajador” (hardworking), etc. Often it´s even hard to know which political party different politicians represent. I asked my friend, and he told me they wouldn´t paint them over until the next election rolled around.
Finally, I am fascinated by the different small “moral messages” that seem to abound in Mexico as in China. In China, it always amused me when I´d see a sign in a park saying “Don´t step on the grass. And respect your mother and father. ” While the first one is certainly a useful and appropriate reminder, the second one seems to be quite random. And I was always wondering whether anyone thought it had any effect. Or whether it indeed did have any effect. Anyway, in Mexico the roads are full of signs saying “Drive slowly, your family is waiting” or “Slow down”, and once again I am wondering whether anyone has ever tested their usefulness. For example by putting signs on one stretch of highway, and none on another, and measuring the difference in speed/accidents. (Of course, it could be argued that their impact is not immediate but rather aggregated. Anyhow, social scientists have tried to measure far more difficult things.) In addition, during television ads it seems that the law mandates showing small moral messages. I am used to pharmaceutical ads showing disclaimers and so on, but here it sometimes becomes ridiculous - and ad for Coca Cola with a message beneath: Eat well. And an ad for a Sony Playstation, with the little message “Do sports”… First of all, I don´t think most people even notice these admonitions, certainly they are far less powerfull than the compelling ads. But secondly, and maybe more dangerously, I think it can lead kids to make the link “Eat well, drink Coca”… Imagine a mother telling her son to go out and play insteading of playing PlayStation, - “but mam, I´m doing sports!”. Hm. (Of course, in Norway we “solve” it by disallowing all TV ads for political parties, pharmaceuticals, alcohol and tobacco).
Stian
