Instant Advertisements.

At the end of the football grand final today (which is considered a highly important event in the Melbourne calendar, apparently) advertisements screened for one of the sponsors, Carlton Draft Beer. The advertisement was a slow motion replay of the players celebrating at the end of the game: a scene that had screened live only around two minutes earlier. The scene was accompanied by a sort of apparently operatically inspired jingle with lyrics about being inspired to join the cheer squad and making a banner with a slogan that made no sense, the last bit being repeated several times.

Presumably the jingle had been prepared earlier and the scenes to replay had been chosen on the spot, the two hastily combined on some editing software with the logo plonked in at the end. It would have been an easy advertisement to create, but no doubt immensely successful. The football fan audience would already have been  veritably mesmerised by the grand final festivity scenes and the dramatic vocals matched the mood perfectly. The timing was also perfect, since the traditional way in which fans of the winning ream celebrate and those of the losing time commiserate is by drinking copious quantities of beer. In those off hand moments when they find their hands empty and feel socially insecure, the words Carlton Draft will no doubt come to their rescue, to be blurted at publicans with little need to distract the mind from the important business of appearing suitably joyous or devastated in accordance with their team's fortunes.

It is certain that a lot of beer will be sold tonight and that a lot of it will no doubt be Carlton Draft. Two questions though: how widespread is this form of instant advertising likely to become and how far is it possible to blur the lines between television show content and advertising? More on this later.