Choose Your Own Ad-venture

[Dragavan]

The Twitter client I use has occasionally ads cycle through as "payment" for using the program for free (which I am cool with). I just saw this tweet come up in my stream as one of these paid adverts.

Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? @t1mmoynihan wrote one to help you figure out what camera to buy. <URL clipped out>

At first I was annoyed at the idea, but then I had to laugh. The A CYOA is for Adventure and that is made up of both Ad and Venture, which both fit with the idea of somebody trying to sell you shit. I figured if done well and creatively, it could also be neat.

I had to go look at the site and it was less CYOA and more a list of questions about what you want out of your camera, which I have seen done a million times before. Other than the front page of the thing, which explained the whole idea of using the CYOA method from those books to create this tool, it had no story to it at all. Hell, NewEgg does it better and cleaner on their site when I try to choose an item within a category.

But it then got me thinking about how you could actually do this tool in a more entertaining and creative way, actually making it a story you go through. It would still asked the same questions in the end, but got you there through little scenes that told the story. At least then they could really call it a CYOA and not just an items selection tool. I might actually like to see something like that done. It sure as hell would have kept me on their site longer than the two minutes it took me to read the front page and click through to see the rest was crap... Hell, I may even do it at some point if given the half the chance.

[Vesnic]

Advertising is advertising. I'm about as fond of CYOA being commandeered to "sell shit" as I am of lyric poetry being "utilized" to push a political point. There's got to be some respect for the form, even a lowly form like CYOA. Not everything is just waiting in the wings to be converted into MONIE$!!!

Advertising should not try to sneak around pretending it's something it's not. Remember the old rule in magazines where an ad, even one that sort of camouflaged with the overall look of the 'zine, still had to have it conspicuously written top and bottom: ADVERTISEMENT PAID FOR BY FLUFFY CORPORATION. There was a reason for that--so suckers wouldn't confuse "fact with fiction" (and also the magazine got to cover its ass so it could claim no liability in the event that the said sucker ended up burning her clit off with the advertised "hot n' heavy dildo")...

But wait a minute, I was on to something...confusing fact with fiction. We could carry this whole idea out to very great extremes. Whole novels could be written about Dove Soap, but that doesn't make it a good idea. With all the current assaults to literature out there (chick-lit, political vendetta, "Blaze" romance by Harlequin, Jodi Fucking Picoult), I think some care needs to be taken in how much the scales are allowed to tip even further in the trashy direction.

Maybe, just maybe, if it's festooned with warnings and waivers and multicolored provisos, then maybe, maybe, I will permit such things as an advertisement CYOA when I am dictator, but still only in very limited contexts. I won't pretend I didn't enjoy the "hunter shoots a bear" thing on YouTube which was selling gorilla glue or something else quite random. In the right hands, it might be enjoyable or even edifying but...

Niggle niggle niggle. I feel this little tickly voice screaming out from somewhere in the nether regions of my brain, "Noooooooooooo!!". It just feels wrong, ya know? I just do not want to give over every last aspect of my life to those sneaky unregulated capitalist bastards who are willing to break heads in the interests of becoming ultra-ultra-ultra-rich where before they were merely ultra-ultra-rich. The more subtle and subliminal their methods of advertising become (and they're already pretty fucking sophisticated), the less ability we, the suckers, have to truly and meaningfully fight back. What if we want to write a CYOA that has nothing to do with Dove Soap? Will that still be permissible in 10 years, or will it merely be dubbed a "waste of time and resources"?

Some things must remain sacred, or at the very least, respected, as already complete unto themselves and not in need of having a Coca-Cola logo stamped onto them.

Fiction is sacred. Creation is sacred. The creation of fiction is sacred. Even if it's about bunnies raping gazelles, it is still the product of a single mind, not a corporation. We must maintain and nurture the fruit of individual minds or we're all really fucked.

[End Master]

I'm not usually a victim of advertising, but I'll be damned if I didn't feel a sudden urge to immediately get some laundry detergent when I saw this commercial on tv last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKOkp...feature=relmfu

(Don't worry Ves, I still resisted the SYSTEM by stealing it rather than buying it)

Though I think one of the odder product placement ideas I've heard of was in a video game called Darkened Skye where the player character performed magic using Skittles candy. That was it. The rest of the game was a typical fantasy setting...where they used Skittles for magic.

[Dragavan]

That is an awesome ad... still would never use Woolite, but the ad is great.

The thing is, I'm not against advertising. I not even even against advertising and art mixing... in fact, the best ads I have seen have been well crafted art pieces. I do get annoyed when advertising is "hidden" in art, but if I know up front that what I am about to see is art and advertising at the same time, I don't care.

Hell, people love well-done ads in general. Just look at any Super-Bowl sunday. What gets talked about more than the game? The commercials. Everyone wants to see what cool new fun and entertaining commercials are going to be there. I will admit that I enjoy the hell out of Jack in the Box commercials myself (even though I hate eating their crap food). They are brilliantly written and the guy who plays Jack does a great job.

The ads that try to disguise themselves as factual articles within magazines or passing themselves off as talk shows or science programming on television, without telling us clearly that they are an ad for a specific product are something I get annoyed with. They are dishonest and trying to scam or trick people into falling for them as being something they are not.

But openly being an ad that is made to look like a story or an entertaining short film or some other form of art, great. Hell, they've been doing that for years. Not just with the obvious commercials, but with entire shows (like nearly every kid's cartoon from the 80's), comics, and even novels being nothing but entertaining advertisements for some item or line of items. The G.I.Joe comics and cartoon would never have existed if it wasn't for the toy line they were trying to sell, but that didn't stop it from being entertaining.

The whole point I made in the first post (and why I put it in this category and not Off Topic) was about an advertising company that was promising an ad done in the art form we practice here (the CYOA) that failed to even attempt to do what it said. The idea of being creative and making a story out of it, but it still being an ad, could be quite well done. I would actually like to see that done... Especially if done well and entertaining.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Don't steal, End! I tried to fight the system and got burned. Actually I tried to swing on the security guard with a pair of brass knuckles and missed, as some do-gooder "suckers" tackled me from behind. My proudest moment! What was I trying to steal? None of your business! But it was made by a corporation! A corporation that advertizzzzzzzes.

Have at thee, foul fiends!!!!!

Nowadays I fight the system by stealing things from the check out aisle. Still get that little rush, but its a little less.....criminally. A little more.....old ladyish.

Check this outjhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p0QtJabsolute vodka. This is a real commercial. Watch the whole series. Trust your old pal chubby. Or don't. What the fuck do I care you mother fucking....

Stop. Deep breath. Think of skittles. I'm touching the raindbow. I'm free basing the rainbow.

Speaking of gorilla glue, don't get that shit on your hands. Its ICKY!!!!!!!!

I don't mind the commercial wasteland we live in.

Do you love it? I love it! I got it at Ross!

[End Master]

Well if a lost business executive ever wanders over here and makes me a serious offer for a CYOA, I'll consider it.

Even got a story idea.

Skittlemancer: Sometimes when the rainbow calls you must answer...

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Well, here's an ad for ya;

Five dollars for my footlong!!

Five...five dollar....five dollar footlong.

Ill post pic.s

[donteatpoop]

Chubbers, you should try deleting some of your messages in your inbox, or your sent messages... Or use the site mail.

[Dragavan]

Chubbers, you should try deleting some of your messages in your inbox, or your sent messages... Or use the site mail.

Why would he want to do that? That would actually make things easier on the rest of us trying to contact him. You think he wants to have any personal contact with the rest of us? We might contaminate him with our abnormal thoughts and ideas.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Why would he want to do that? That would actually make things easier on the rest of us trying to contact him. You think he wants to have any personal contact with the rest of us? We might contaminate him with our abnormal thoughts and ideas.

Room hath been made! Lo then! The angry masses rejoiced.