Sometimes, for discernible reasons, the corporate marketing hacks who try to control our lifestyles, do something really really annoying. And then again, sometimes they do it for no discernible reason.
Case in point. I just rented the VHS tape of the movie “Walkabout” by Nicholas Roeg. I popped it into the machine, pressed the “play” button, and watched. What I saw was a preview for the movie… “Walkabout”, by Nicholas Roeg.
I thought, whoa! That’s cool. A preview of the movie I just rented.
Now, wait a minute. Do people go to a video store, pick a movie at random, take it home, watch the preview, and then decide if they are going to watch the movie?
Not very likely, you’ll agree. No, like most people, I picked a movie I wanted to watch and then took it home to watch. So why is there a preview for the same movie on the tape?
Now, previews are designed to peak your interest. They show you the most interesting or provocative scenes from the movie, in the hope that you will want to see the whole thing… a few weeks later at a movie theatre.
But when you are about to watch the movie, do you want the preview to show you what is going to happen to the people in the film? Do you want to know that the car you see them driving in at the beginning, is going to end up burning in the dessert? Do you want to know that the girl is going to go skinny-dipping? Do you want to know that she and her little brother will run into somebody out in the dessert?
Yes, you do, when the movie gets to it.
It’s like the loudmouth leaving the movie theatre as you are going in, muttering, “can you believe it? The butler really did do it!”