Our grandfather would sometimes say, "Pretty soon, they're gonna plug the idiot box right into your head so you won't be able to escape it," and we'd go, "Alright, grandpa, whatever you say–now put your goddamn pants back on." It's terrifying how close to being right that wacky old man is getting.
Advertising is coming to the dentist's chair in the form of personal video goggles that patients wear while getting their cleaning or root canal.
The company behind InChairTV figures advertisers for toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwash and other dental products will be willing to pay higher rates to reach people seeking distractions from dental procedures. Companies selling travel packages and other stress-relief services might also find the dentist's chair prime time to make their pitches.
Willing patients put on a special headset to watch movies or television shows licensed from The Walt Disney Co. and its ABC TV network. The programs and infomercials are sent to dentists on DVDs, but soon they will be downloadable over the Internet.
For the past year, InChairTV has been filling commercial breaks with short infomercials about teeth whitening and other premium procedures. Now the company says it is opening the commercial breaks to outside advertisers, though it has yet to close any deals.
Matthew Leader, one of the garbage bags behind this disgusting plot, notes that one great advantage of advertising in dentist's offices is that the commercials won't be wasted on the crappy, uneducated, brown eyeballs of poor people: "We definitely see the value as much higher than undifferentiated broadcast television." In other words, let them eat cake, and may the sugar rot the teeth from their heads.
Hi, this is Matt Leader, the "garbage bag" behind this "disgusting plot." I'm not quite sure what you are so angry about here. You write this blog. We provide entertainment to dental patients. Both of them, like all "free" media, are paid for by selling ads. No one is being forced to watch anything; dentists and patients both choose if they want to watch videos during procedures, just like they choose whether to visit this blog. Are you, someone whose salary is presumably paid by the ads I'm looking at right now on this site, disgusted by the concept of ad-supported media? If your dentist had a regular broadcast TV on the wall that you could watch during procedures, the commercial nature of that would also disgust you? The only difference is that instead of commercials for Coke, our commercials are for toothpaste. And as an advertising salesman yourself, surely you know that the problem with "undifferentiated television" is that it wastes ad dollars on people who are not your target market, which is why there aren't a lot of Ford commercials on saturday morning cartoons. So toothpaste advertisers like to reach people who buy toothpaste. That, obviously, has nothing to do with how brown or poor the eyeballs are. Overall, it's kind of weird how you have described our business, which is exactly the same as yours except that our customers are extremely grateful for the comfort and stress relief we provide, as some some racist evil. Oh - should I click on the "Advertise on Jossip" link before I go?
Best regards,
Matt "Garbage Bag" Leader