Hype

This is going to be the best blog entry ever.

No, not really.

(Before I get started here, I just want to say that, yes, I know it's been ages since I've done a new blog entry. For all my millions of readers—OK, for my reader—I apologize and say that I will try to get back to blogging on a more semi-regular occasional basis. And now on to the actual post....)

This is about hype. It's all around us—most of it in advertising, but it's not confined there.

People do it all the time on a personal basis. We like to see things in simple black/white, love/hate bookends, minus the actual books in between which provide verifiable facts that make up the large gray area. Which is fine.

I understand that when someone says they "love" something they mean they really, really like it—a lot. And since that's on an individual basis, that's reasonable enough. They're usually not trying to say that I should "love" the object in question too, only that they do.

The problem I have with hype, though, is when it comes in a more generally applied form such as advertising or awards. Too often something is just simply declared "The Best" while there is no actual quantifiable and therefore verifiable way of determining such a "fact." (Opinion polls are attempts at quantifying normally non-quantifiable subjects and while they may succeed somewhat in that purpose, personally they don't mean much to me, but then my tastes have always tended to be a little bit out of the societal mainstream.)

I've seen statements whereby a certain wireless phone company declares that they have "the fewest dropped calls." OK. What does that mean? Maybe they have the fewest dropped calls because they have the fewest customers and therefore far fewer calls are made using their service, in which case I'm not surprised if they have the fewest dropped calls. I would be more impressed if they said they had the lowest percentage of dropped calls. That way, it wouldn't matter about the overall number of customers per wireless service, the statistic on dropped calls would simply be a ratio relating to the overall number of calls made. Only then will the statistic mean anything to me.

Now maybe that's what the company means by their phrase of "fewest dropped calls," but if so I want them to explicitly state that meaning, not bury it in microscopic fine print. It would be so simple to state it that way too—instead of "fewest," just say "lowest percentage of."

I freely admit that I haven't actually looked into this particular claim for myself to determine exactly what was meant, but part of my point is that it shouldn't be left to the consumer to dig into the information/fine print to determine the precise meaning. The advertising could easily be worded in such a way as to make the meaning perfectly clear—they just choose not to do so. And my assumption for why they choose not to do so is that doing so would tend to lessen the impact of their claim—if not negate it completely. Therefore, the ad is ineffective (for me personally, of course.)

See, the problem has become this—I've been inundated for so long by obviously overhyped empty claims that I simply no longer believe most of what I hear/see in advertising. In fact, when I hear a claim in an ad I'm probably more likely to disbelieve it because quite simply I just assume they're overhyping their product. Or to be more blunt—lying.

It's not nearly as glamourous or ear-catching, I know, but why can't companies just say that they provide a service/product, that they feel they do it/build it well, maybe give a few concrete examples of how/why, and that they want you to try it and see what you think?

I can't cite actual references and I'm not going to go to the trouble of trying to Google it, but I know I've seen occasional mentions in newspaper articles that the percentage of advertising minutes to program minutes (either TV or radio) has risen steadily over the years. And I doubt there will be anyone who would dispute that statement because I think it's rather obvious to anyone who watches TV or listens to the radio regularly. Heck, they've even found ways to wedge more advertising actually into programs with product placement or DJs/announcers doing commercials live. You think the program is back from a flurry of ads when all of a sudden the announcer starts plugging yet another sponsor!

There's one ad I've heard on the radio which actually advertises advertising! It tries to convince people/companies to advertise on the radio by stating how you woke up in an advertised bed, drank an advertised coffee, drove an advertised car, etc. My thought when I hear that spot is "Yeah, so?" Just because those things were advertised doesn't mean that's why you bought them. There's no actual link established between the advertising and the purchases.

I just think there has to be a point of diminishing returns, either in the sheer amount of advertising out there or in the ever more grandiose claims made. At some point it all just becomes too much.

And all of that doesn't even begin to touch on the vast muck and mire that is political advertising! I'm just not even gonna go there except to say that if I were king of the world I'd make it so that candidates/political parties would only be allowed to mention their own views, opinions, accomplishments, etc., without ever mentioning the opponents. I mean, does anyone anywhere pay even the least bit of attention to all those sleazy political ads where one candidate makes himself out to be one step from sainthood whereas the opponent is a puppy-kicking satanist?

As I said, though, hype isn't just in advertising. I've seen posters in online guestbooks/forums who endlessly self-promote, using language that you just know is overblown. One guy in particular on a guestbook I visit often cites how he's interviewing so-and-so, the "most important" fiction writer working today. I mean, "Huh?" How does one determine just who is an "important" fiction writer? There's simply no way. You can look at book sales figures, but I don't really think that's a good measure of "importance." And other than that, I don't think there is any quantifiable criteria.

The same (il?)logic applies to awards—Grammy, Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Golden Globe, Pulitzer, Tony, Nobel... Well, perhaps you can make a case for the Nobel prizes being the closest to objective measurement (though I wouldn't necessarily exonerate them either). But those other awards all say "Best this..." and "Best that..." when I don't know that there's any objective way of even determining "best-ness." Who's to say one comedy is better than another? How do you compare dramas which depict completely different stories? I don't think you can.

It's all a matter of personal taste. I've had people say to me something like, "You don't like such-and-such food? How can you not like it?" My response is usually, "I just don't. There's no particular reason other than personal taste. My taste buds send signals to my brain which must differ—or my brain interprets differently—from the signals that your taste buds send to your brain."

Too often when I see the Emmy or Oscar nominations I think to myself, "There were better TV shows/movies than those!" If I recall correctly Moulin Rouge was nominated for best picture and I think it even won. Now, maybe I have low-brow taste, but I found Moulin Rouge to be simply annoying. There wasn't much of a story, the acting was not particularly good, and they didn't know how to pick a song and stick with it for a scene! To put it in all-or-nothing black & white terms, I "hated" it. But maybe that's just me, which is kind of my point.

All the hype in the world can't overcome personal taste. And that's why I tune out advertising/hype. Just because an automaker says they have the #1 selling vehicle in the country doesn't mean that vehicle is the one for me. It's nice for them as a company, but doesn't mean a thing to me. It's just empty bragging.