My thoughts on product displacement and disclaimers

[spencerkarter85]

Here's my latest thought. This time on product displacement and disclaimers. First on product displacement, when you see a TV show like reality television for example and see a familar product logo gets blurred out or covered with duct tape (like on Dancing with The Stars for example). All of this is getting too common these days. It's like censoring a product logo on TV. I've first heard about this while watching a Paul McCartney special on ABC back in November 2002, I've noticed that the Coke and Pepsi logos blurred out, but when they're watching Jay Leno, the NBC logo bug wasn't blurred out. Why? Also, Conan O'Brien (when he was hosting The Tonight Show for a short time) had newsclips, it has the logos blurred out. Jay Leno's The Tonight Show (before Conan/after Conan) never blurred out rival logos. I was watching Jimmy Kimmel on ABC, and they showed Jersey Shore, they blurred out the familar MTV logo as well. Three years back, I was watching an old Van Helen music video on VH1 Classic from the late 1980s where they had fandom in Los Angeles, they blurred out the microphone flags of network affiliated stations (you know KCBS, KNBC, KABC, KTTV, etc.), but they didn't blurred out the E! and Warner Bros. logos. On a rerun of Bergeron's AFV, they blurred out the Burger King logo on one of the home videos as well. On DWTS, some episodes, they had to blurr out some familar logos on T-shirts, and other stuff. From a season 11 episode, where Kyle Massey was wearing a Motown Records shirt, they covered the "Mo" part with black tape and leave "town" as it is. Also, it happens on PBS as well, since I saw a clip of a PBS show this morning, they covered a logo on the sweater that a woman was wearing. This has gone too far. The censoring product logos must stop now. Don't get me started about state license plates getting blurred out alot.

On discliamers, you see lots of them nowadays. Like in that Snickers' ad with Rosanne Barr, she gets hit by a log, and it saids Do Not Attempt, or various car commercials with the phrase Professional Driver on Closed Course, that's getting too common thse days, whose idea is was? Ad agencies or lawyers? Also, when a person endorsed a product (that bother's me alot), it saids Actor Portayal instead of actual human bein' user. This needs to stop. Stop with those dangerous stunt commericals.

That's all of my thoughts on those two issues.

 

[easttxtv]

I thought when I first saw the topic, you meant placement. I know what you mean now, though.

Anyway, the blurring/duct-taping might be irritating, but the broadcaster/show obviously doesn't in those cases want to promo a rival network or show. They may (depending on the show) have an exclusive promo/ad arrangement that would make the slip of another product's image or item, at least, very frowned upon--if not a violation of some contract. Like having Bud Light as Jimmy Kimmel's stage/music segment sponsor--they sure wouldn't want someone on the show (or a video clip) talking about or showing something Coors or Miller -related during that time. Or maybe a how-to/cooking segment of a talk show, if they turn the packages around or tape over a brand name, the show probably doesn't have the budget to pay every one of the companies represented in the segment if their brands were shown. Even times when a picture of someone is shown, and others in the pic might be blurred out. They obviously aren't pertinent to the topic or might be innocent bystanders who didn't want (or agree to) have their images shown on TV.

The taping-over and blurring of something doesn't bother me, as long as there's logical reasons for it being done.

(As for the license plate thing, I've seen several traffic-related pix on the internet that blur/blank-out the plate number; that might be understandable too. There's WAY too many cases of ID theft out there these days (I know, I'm a multiple victim myself), and even if it didn't come to that, I'm sure some picture-poster doesn't want to contribute to some innocent driver being stalked or just harrassed (a-la the unfortunate folks who had "Jenny"'s phone number in the Tommy Tutone song of the 80s))

 

[azumanga]

I've first heard about this while watching a Paul McCartney special on ABC back in November 2002, I've noticed that the Coke and Pepsi logos blurred out, but when they're watching Jay Leno, the NBC logo bug wasn't blurred out. Why? Also, Conan O'Brien (when he was hosting The Tonight Show for a short time) had newsclips, it has the logos blurred out.

For the Dick Clark "Bloopers" specials that appeared on ABC, the network logos of non-ABC affiliates were either blurred out or digitally covered out, while ABC's logos, obviously, remained.

 

[cwf1701]

OTOH, in Detroit 187, People mover ads for WJBK and WADL did slip thru (in the clips of Detroit scenes).

now my 2 cents on the disclaimers. i think it started after some people tried some of the stuff in the commercials and on tv, but that started (the Disclaimers) in the late 90s-early 2000s. and even before the stunt commercials, there was some scenes from cartoons, live action, and other that people would try to do like on tv. one of the earliest "Don't Try this at home" PSA was a end of cartoon PSA that aired in the late 70s-early 80s (can't remember the show, but all the cartoons of the late 70s-early 80s had End of show PSA).

 

[azumanga]

OTOH, in Detroit 187, People mover ads for WJBK and WADL did slip thru (in the clips of Detroit scenes).

On TruTV's "Hardcore Pawn", in scenes between segments that would show the "scenery" of Detroit, in some episodes the ads on the people mover would be uncensored, and in others they would be blurred out.

Speaking of which, before Les and Seth (the owners of American Jewelry) became executive producers, the URL of their website, pawndetroit.com, would be blurred out, but after they took the title, it was no longer blurred out. The funny thing, though, is that merchandise with the "Hardcore Pawn" logo (the very show they are featured) are blurred out.

 

[visaman]

I think the disclaimers started with the TV show, That's Incredible! Their "Kids, Don't try this at home" verbal disclaimer was often mocked by the media at that time.

As for blurring out logos. I was a background actor in many TV shows and movies, and we were always told, not to wear T-shirts with logos.

 

[firepoint525]

On Wife Swap recently, Flava Flav (I think I got his name right) was wearing something with a New York Yankees logo on it (the "NY"), and it was blurred, but not to the point that it couldn't be made out. Actually drew MORE attention to it by doing that!

The first time that I recall seeing this done was in Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" video (1995) in which one of her dancers had his t-shirt blurred. I thought at the time that maybe there was some profanity or something on it, but it was more likely advertising for something or other.