To heap on one more thing to screw with your head this Friday, Google is selling vintage commercials through its Google Video search. You heard right, if you want to view the commercial, you’ll have to pay a dollar. Anybody else hear Gabriel’s trumpet?
Just a few weeks ago advertisers paid $2.5 million for a 30-second ad on the Super Bowl. Looks like some are trying to make that money back. Granted the commercials for sale through Google Video are vintage-commercials we knew and loved as kids-but some of these companies are still around.
Hang on. Let’s talk about the cool changes to Google Video and then get back to this. Google has added category tags-very YouTube-esque. This must have been what Larry Page was yelling about. Searchers who just want to browse videos can do so with the help of tags marked “Popular,” “Animation,” and “Educational,” among others. Sweet.
Now back to the commercial thing. Not all of them are for sale. There are “free” old commercials like the Reebok one where the guy about gets eaten by his sofa, the Burger King “let’s make fun of the Pope” commercial, and even a 1985 Commodore 128 advert
(Darn you 128! Always smirking on the TV at me, “oh, I see Santa brought you a Commodore 64. Guess your parents don’t’ really love you.” I’ll get you one of these days.)
But if you want to see Morris the Cat. It’ll run you a buck. If you want to see Lauren Hutton hock Dial Soap, that’s another dollar. Or how do you feel about a black-and-white 3 Musketeers spot? The commercials appear to be licensed through the Historic Films Archive.
Now it is totally understandable that the company that owns the rights to these ads charge a fee to use the clips for a televised program or some other enterprise usage. But I ain’t paying to see Morris the Cat again, especially if 9Lives Cat Food is still around. In fact, they should be paying Historic Films Archive or Google any time somebody views the promo.
So does this mean in the future if I link to 9Lives, Dial Soap, or 3 Musketeers, I owe somebody $3 for checking out those sites? I have an idea. I have a bridge I’d like to sell you, but you’ll have to give me a dollar every 30 seconds to hear about it.
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