Crisp, refreshing Greg goes down easy (advertising) 8.13.02

There is a homework assignment at the end of today's column. Don't worry, it involves watching TV not doing calculus.
A British marketing firm working for video game manufacturer Acclaim UK is looking for people who will legally change their identities to that of one of their most popular characters, Turok, a time-travelling American Indian who hunts bionically-enhanced dinosaurs. I know what you're thinking: where is a pre-contact Indian supposed to get a time machine and why would he kill dinosaurs bionic or otherwise?
The process is called identity marketing and is just the latest abomination to come out of the minds and wallets of marketing folk who act more and more like characters from Revelations every day.
How it works is you go online and apply. You have to be willing to not just change your name legally to "Turok" for one year, you have to be willing to live your life as a walking talking advertisement for the game. Dress like Turok, talk like Turok. Kill bionic dinosaurs should they show up at your place of work.
Oh, you can keep your job at McDonald's. Mickey Ds would probably be obligated to keep you on the payroll too. As an equal opportunity employer, it would be illegal for them to fire an employee just because he is a time-traveling Indian who kills bionic dinosaurs. That's in the Constitution presumably.
You will need to keep your day job as well because in exchange for abandon your true identity for a year, you will make a whopping $800, according to the Associated Press. Well, NEARLY $800. Apparently making an enormous jackass out of yourself for an entire year is only worth about $785 ... before taxes.
Why such a silly ploy to promote a video game? Apparently, the average consumer (which is what corporate executives call human beings) are "too dulled to conventional advertising." To put it succinctly, our attention spans have become so short (due in no small part to advertising) that we don't pay enough attention to conventional advertising that interrupts our TV shows, falls out of our magazines, kicks up the wait time before our movies to 20 minutes, changes the names of stadiums and litters walkways, roadways and schools to sell us things we don't need and can't afford. Or worse, just to create "an image" for some product.
Newer and "better" ways of advertising have to be developed to get people to look at ads, ESPECIALLY when they don't want to.
For example, product placements began hardcore when Reese's Pieces played a large role the alien's favorite snack in "E.T." Now it's sad and commonplace, but luckily it only happens in movies that are total crap like everything made by an SNL Alum or its producer Lorne Michaels.
Recently Michaels put a Sobe soft drink ad right in the middle of an SNL sketch of a fake talk show. It was supposed to be funny.
A couple in Kansas named their son Iuma after the Internet Underground Music Archive. They were paid $5,000 for this bit of abuse.
Superbowl winners shouting "I'm going to Disneyland!" during interviews for cash is demeaning to them, their sport and our intelligence. Come on, does anyone really believe a professional quarterback is going to take a pass on all the champagne, drugs and women that come with victory to hop on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride?
Garbage is a GREAT way to advertise. Fast food wrappers are emblazoned with logos not for the five minutes we see them AFTER we buy fries, but because much of that garbage gets tossed out of car windows and sits on the ground for days.
Schemes like these are viewed even by advertising executives as a way to "get their message heard" over the white noise of TV commercials, magazine inserts, junk mail, billboards, signs on busses, bus stops, cabs, buildings, over urinals, on web sites and in your face 24/7.
Let's face it, it works. It's working right now.
By talking about how brutally stupid anyone would have to be to change their identity to that of a video game character, I help Acclaim sell their worthless game. For every 20 or 30 people who tsk along with me there will be one or two people who think to themselves, "A game about a time-traveling Indian? Who kills Dinosaurs?! BIONIC DINOSAURS!?! Sign me up for that!" Fait accompli. The deed is done.
The only way to win is to move to a cabin in the woods for 30 or 40 years and even then you will catch yourself singing the words to the only song you know: "Fee-lin' 7UP, I'm feelin' 7UP. It's the crisp refreshing feeling, crystal clear and light. America's turning 7UP and it sure fe-els right. Feelin' like a 7, feelin' 7UP."
That's from memory, folks. A commercial that has not been on the air since the early '80s.
Homework assignment: Go out and rent the original "Rollerball" this weekend, the one starring James Caan, not the hideous remake that came out six months ago. Watch it, learn from it and discuss.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.