Blog Post 3

Julian Ryan Breyette

November 25^th, 2014

Professor Brent Smith-Casanueva

Blog Post #3

            In this last portion of our semester I found John Caldwell’s essay entitled “Televisual Audience: Interactive Pizza” extremely intriguing and coherent with the themes that we have discussed this semester. The thesis that I found most interesting is that television has always been interactive in the sense that networks never considered viewers as passive, but from the very beginning have known that television is an activity in which the user is engaged and observant, not passive, therefore making it the perfect tool for advertising. In the series Keeping Up With The Kardashians, advertising within the program is used constantly, proving the points that we have discussed in class as well as the thesis of Caldwell’s essay. 

            Caldwell, an author that I have enjoyed reading very much so this semester due to his wit and straightforward writing style says, “Broadcasters from the start did not see the viewer as a couch potato, but as an active buyer and discriminating consumer.” (Caldwell 254) This is the key point to consider in this essay, and in the program Keeping Up With The Kardashians, broadcasted on the E! Network. Within the program, advertising is included seamlessly from companies such as Fiji Water, Starbucks Corporation, Land Rover, Chanel, Mercedes Benz, and other highly profitable companies.

            Audiences of this program who do not study television or media in depth may not notice that this advertising is heavily included within the program. However this semester we talked extensively in class about how the truly effective form of advertising is not through traditional commercials. Commercials are often fast-forwarded through with newer technologies such as DVR, or sometimes envied entirely when programs are viewed via Netflix or another streaming source. But when the advertisements are incorporated into the programs themselves, the viewer observes them directly. Furthermore, the viewers of a show like Keeping Up With The Kardashians are most likely fans of the program, and the people pushing the products, further reinforcing the effectiveness of the advertising.

            I agree with Caldwell that television has always been interactive in the sense that networks have always known how to benefit from their viewers economically by using television as a marketing tool. The program Keeping Up With The Kardashians uses this industry-old method to advertise to their viewers without having to do so during the actual commercials. Both the networks and the companies advertising on them benefit from this arrangement because the products are advertised by people that the viewers admire, making them more likely to sell to the company's target consumers. For the the television personalities and networks the benefit comes from a substantial financial contribution for simply having Kim Kardashian sip a drink of Starbucks or step into her Mercedes Benz G-Wagon.