Coming Soon To A Cellphone Near You

Admen are secretly plotting to invade your cellphone with their evil advertising.

They feel they have to: People’s reliance on television is waning in the face of cellphones, laptops, Blackberrys, and similar devices that all have one thing in common: They’re distractions from watching television.

Furthermore, folks are buying devices (like digital recorders) that allow them to avoid commercials even when they are watching television.

It’s an adman’s worst nightmare.

Yet he’s got a problem: We already have laws against telemarketing people if they don’t acquiesce to it. (I never do. As soon as I realize I’m talking to a telemarketer, I tell him to take my number off his list and not to call again. Consequently, I almost never get telemarketing calls.)

And nobody’s going to buy a phone that forces you to watch or listen to a commercial when you want to make or receive a call.

We also have ample demonstration of the public’s refusal to have spam invade their e-mail boxes in the form of laws against this that will stiffen and become more effective with time (or else e-mail will go the way of the dinosaur and be replaced by a better, spam-secure system).

So what’s an evil adman to do?

Create content that is compelling enough that you’ll seek it out and be willing to put up with the advertising it contains.

This works in principle: It’s the principle on which TV shows support themselves: You tune in for the content and are willing to tolerate the advertisting.

But can it work on your cell phone? There are folks talking about producing mini-TV shows for cell phones (many of which now have color screens on which such shows could be watched). They even exist already in some countries. But can content that compelling be done under the format constraints a cellphone poses?

Time will tell.

In the meantime, the evil admen scheme and dream in their sinister sunken city.

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Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin