More

Photo: Randomhouse.ca

It’s not your imagination.

There were eight minutes of commercials in a one-hour episode of Bonanza in the 1960s. You’ll find 16 spread over 44 minutes of Desperate Housewives.

It’s not a coincidence that the good guys in 24 all drive Fords while the bad guys trash their GMs. Or that the twofisted drinkers on Mad Men ask for Jack Daniels by name.

If you have the impression that movie times have been “adjusted” to hold a paying audience captive in a web of ever more cinema ads among the Coming Attraction trailers, trust your tingling Spidey sense.

And when the feature film finally arrives, of course, it’s likely to be stinking with gratuitous product placements. Pay careful attention to last year’s hit Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, and you can watch Daniel Craig slash and snog his way through $79 million worth of subliminal and not so subliminal sales pitches (the advertisers included Ford, Heineken, Smirnoff, Omega watches, Virgin Atlantic, Aston Martin, Coca-Cola and Sony).

It’s a Barnum and Bailey world out there, where a typical North American is likely to be bombarded by between 300 and a staggering 6,000 marketing messages a day.

But don’t play the innocent victim with us, Mr. and Mrs. Consumer.

Sure, you program the digital video recorder to dodge TV commercials. But you gleefully gather around co-workers’ computers to snicker at “branded videos” on the Web.

You may be aghast at advertising in once-contemplative domains like public washroom stalls. Yet each year, you keenly await the best new spots showcased at the Super Bowl and the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Acolytes of CBC Radio One are attracted by the welcome refuge it offers from the relentless, repetitive hucksterism of commercial stations. Yet the Mother Corp.’s most informative, most entertaining program since its advent in 2006– O’Reilly and the Age of Persuasion – is an insider’s anecdote-driven, joyous romp through the myriad ways marketing pervades our lives. Relax. You’re soaking in it.

O’Reilly, co-founder of Pirate Radio and Television in Toronto and New York, and Tennant, co-creator of both the current series and its prequel, O’Reilly on
Advertising, tell the story in this book of how modern marketing came of age and where it’s heading.

It comes out this month (also as an ebook) and it’s an instant classic on media literacy. Send money. Their operators are standing by.