The Marketing Tactic That Makes Me Hate DVDs

The other night, Leo and I settled in to watch "Aliens in the Attic" and I was reminded yet again that today's DVDs really annoy me. Listen, I get that studios want us to watch all of their movies, but when I put a DVD in, I don't think I should be forced to watch previews of every last one of them. I try hitting the "menu" button, but it rarely works. I get that annoying, "Action prohibited by disc" message or the even more irritating circle-with-a-slash that indicates, simply, "No."

On some discs, you can fast forward. On others, you can stop the playback, then hit the menu button. But should I really have to go through this, if all I want is to watch the movie I rented? This is yet one more marketing tactic based on the premise, "we'll force you to look at our ads and make it hard to discover how to opt out." Forced marketing, as we've all learned time and time again, doesn't work. It just annoys.

And in this case, it's more than likely that I've already seen the trailer, so compelling me to sit and watch it again isn't going to make me want to watch the film more. 

My poor husband has witnessed my frustration over this tactic time and time again, as I furiously punch buttons on the remote, trying to assert my consumer's rights not to be marketed to. It's not entirely dissimilar to the way I insist that we immediately fast-forward through commercials when we're watching recorded TV.

I don't want to be brainwashed by marketing any more than I already am. I can't turn off the billboards or magazine ads, and I can't help that I see certain amounts of marketing collateral all day, every day. But I can choose when I see the more overt forms when I'm watching TV and movies, and as such, I darned well will do so as much as possible (and yeah, it is a little hard to live with me, LOL).

Oh, and btw, "Aliens in the Attic" was a delightful movie. It was quirky, not at all scary, and generally just fine family fun.