There I was in the dentist's chair with the TV on in front of me, with the 10 or 11 "Good Morning America" co-hosts—or was it 13 or 14?—yelling and laughing maniacally as one at some unfunny cross-promotional tidbit about what's trending on Twitter. I only prayed the whine and scrape of the ultrasonic scaler would be amplified to drown out their bleating.
I was Alex the droog suffering my personal version of the Ludovico technique.
Helga, my dental hygienist, lifted her face toward the screen when the stars of ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars" turned up on a semicircular couch for the next cross-promotional segment, and the ultrasonic scaler razed my gums and upper lip and ended up lodged in my left nostril.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" said Helga after I yelped. "You can rinse now."
Helga shoved me back in my seat. "Enough water!" She looked back at the TV screen. "Maybe they'll say who 'A' is finally," she said as she aimed the ultrasonic scaler in the general direction of my mouth.
Next came a hard-hitting cross-promotional news segment on Billy Dee Williams' dance routine on "Dancing With the Stars."
"Ach," said Helga. "Maybe when he was in 'Star Trek' he could dance. Not now."
"He was in 'Star Wars,'" I mumbled through a mouthful of dental instruments.
"You will not talk!" said Helga. "It breaks my concentration."
I suppose I'm not the target audience for "Good Morning America." Maybe they have Helga and her Viking relatives more in mind when they present the universe through a prism of Disney/ABC properties. If so, then Helga is one pissed off member of the target demo. Judging by her reaction when the identity of 'A' was not revealed by the stars of "Liars" despite the teases—she fired a promotional tube of Sensodyne at the the TV—she's tired of being burned by blatant marketing masquerading as entertainment and news.
Before it all leads to a mass revolution and the whole world turns away from established media and to anonymous messaging apps, I offer these three marketing communications lies that the entire solar system is hip to.
1. No one is bothered by cross-promotion, especially if your content or message has value. False: Many people in the Western world and beyond work for corporations that indulge in their own cross-promotions. They can smell it a mile away and it dilutes trust.
2. You can pretend that what you're offering is news even if what you offer is hardly ever news. False: It's just another version of bait and switch, and people will always be on the lookout for something more authentic. (Yes, "GMA" overtook "Today" in broadcast ratings, but this is not 1970 and broadcast ratings are not what they used to be.)
3. If you pretend to be "thrilled" with your own product or service, no one will notice the hollowness of your pitch. False: This approach stopped working sometime around the release of Roger Corman's "The Wasp Woman." Carnival barking doesn't work—unless what you've got really is a carnival with a trashy midway.
And really, who doesn't like a carnival with a trashy midway from time to time? I might be in the mood for one in six months' time, when I'm scheduled for my next bout with Helga.
—Steve Goldstein, @SGoldsteinAI