Londonward

They’ve shown around half of the first season of Lost here in Finland now. During the commercial breaks, the channel ran ads for the Hanso Foundation. At first I didn’t think much about it, because the pseudopositive corporate language used in the ad is very comparable to, say, the ads for the Kuwait Fund that run on BBC World. My back was turned during the first time it ran, so I didn’t notice the lack of subtitles at first. I got clued in by the fact that not that many ads in Finland are entirely in English, and this one just didn’t fit into the general category of “ads shown during Lost”.

I think these kinds of fictional adverts and extensions of fiction into realms they don’t traditionally enter is a positive thing. I see them as a kind of alternative reality game. In addition to providing more information about a frustratingly enigmatic show, they are a source for entertainment in themselves, and require a bit of media literacy from the audience. Beside providing entertainment, the producers choose to require a bit more from the audience than the traditional one-way communication of television.

Of course, not everyone is media literate enough to understand what is going on with the Hanso Foundation advert. The medium of television advertising is so full of similar messages, however, that to an uninterested or untrained viewer it simply doesn’t register. This is another way the Lost creators succeed in this multi-level marketing: The extra material is not required for enjoyment of the show, nor is it strictly intrusive.

Why would they show an advert that was created to run with a second-season episode when Finnish viewers are barely halfway through the first, though? Have there been hints dropped in earlier episodes that could connect in an astute viewer’s mind? Do they want viewers to see the website and possibly get to know things they haven’t seen yet in the show? Or, did Nelonen choose to run the ad because a lot of people have been watching the show at a faster pace, getting episodes from the Internet? The name of the Hanso Foundation no doubt rings a bell to someone who’s watching TV-ripped episodes from the United States.

I don’t know.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 13th, 2006 at 8:55 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.