Urban Art Association

ITV to introduce Graffiti Advertising, by alsbabar on Oct 1, 2008 14:42:34 GMT 1, read article here.
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/01/do0108.xml

ITV's graffiti advertising will turn viewers off

Perhaps it's Banksy's fault. The street artist has shown that graffiti can be bountifully profitable. Now ITV plans to copy him by introducing a bizarre new element to its programmes: graffiti advertising.

The idea is that whenever a shot in a drama or documentary or conceivably even the news contains a large featureless space – a ceiling, for example, or a patch of sky – a specially designed computer programme will project an advertiser's logo onto it. So when, let's say, Sir David Jason is wheezing after a gang of art forgers in A Touch of Frost, we may see an image of Cadbury's drumming gorilla emblazoned on the wall of the nearest disused warehouse.

The thinking, if we can dignify ITV's thought processes by using such a word, is that advertising needs to appear during programmes themselves because – thanks to digital video recorders – many viewers are now able to skip ad breaks. Desperate times, it seems, call for barmy measures.

I think we can guess what viewers will make of the idea. The question is what Andy Burnham will make of it. In June, the Culture Secretary announced that the Government would refuse to endorse the European Union's directive allowing product placement on television. And if the man can't stand the thought of Kirk from Coronation Street drinking from a labelled can of soft drink, he's unlikely to be enthusiastic about the prospect of the Rovers Return's roof being embellished with a CGI version of Mr T chomping a Snickers bar.

But I don't think we should blame ITV. I think we should blame Burnham himself for driving the channel to these splutteringly deranged extremes. Product placement is not such a terrible thing, provided it fits. I can't say I would feel myself morally violated if I saw a soap character brazenly eating from a packet of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Bites. I mean, people do actually eat Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Bites (I hasten to add that other breakfast cereals are available).
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The point is, it's not dramatically implausible – unlike the computer-generated addition of corporate slogans. And if ITV do adopt this baffling tactic, we won't just be skipping their ad breaks – we'll be skipping their programmes too.