Another fantastic use of public mental space

Apparently they’ve made a film out of The Da Vinci Code. It also appears that Sony Pictures, who have put the money into the Ron Howard directed extravaganza, believe that people need to be told about this. A lot. So much so that Central station in Sydney has been converted into a three dimensional billboard in the areas attracting the most traffic, to the point where in every direction you look you are reminded that your role as citizen could be made that much more complete if you just took the time to see The Da Vinci Code. Of course, it would be nice if you read Dan Brown’s original novel on the way to the cinema, or at the very least listened to the Hans Zimmer composed soundtrack on your music delivery device of choice. It seems to be of genuine importance to the human race that this film is supported, so much so that the marketing doesn’t even begin to touch on this film’s potential to enrich the very fabric of our existence, it simply advises us mere mortals to “Be Part Of The Phenomenon”.


What are you doing still sitting here? Are you not aware they’ve made a film out of The Da Vinci Code?

I’m not so naïve as to bemoan the nature of this kind of saturation marketing, but it bothers me when advertising assumes a group of people are that stupid. This thing is going to make money, it’s a given. And how could it fail; the starring line up [which you would be able to see if I took the shot of the banners from the opposite side] contains nothing short of Forest Gump, Amelie, Magneto, Geoffrey Chaucer and Jean Reno! In doing this they seem to have covered almost every possible movie-going demographic, Ian McKellen for your superhero fans, Tom Hanks for… well, pretty much everything else, and with Audrey Tatou and Jean Reno you have TWO token French actors [because, you know, they go to the Louvre, and that’s in France, so they need someone to speak English in a French accent]. I for one am sold. Bring on May the 18th.

I hate that this sort of thing makes me angry, largely because I know it means the ad wins; since I’m spending my time droning on about it. Somewhere, there’s a marketing executive who is sitting in front of google tracking how people are reacting to their campaign, fingers crossed, hoping that someone who reads this may go to themselves “I want to go and see this thing that Daniel’s so upset about, just to see what all the fuss is about”. Don’t try and tell me that this is a ridiculous notion. As far as I’m concerned it’s no more ridiculous than spending millions of marketing dollars to publicise a film that most people are aware of based on a book that even more have read.

Back in the early days of my university degree, I came across the album Dispepsi by Negativland. Basing its content around the much-touted “cola war” of the late 80s to mid 90s, the tracks featured very heavily cut up commercials from two very large soft drink manufacturers, along with telephone conversations and really horrible pop songs [if for some reason you go looking for it, track 8, “All She Called About”, makes for some very eerie listening]. The thing I remember most about the album though, was a leaflet inserted into the liner notes from an organisation called One World Advertising entitled “A Proposal to Coke and Pepsi: Conclusions of the Corporate Cola Strategy Analaysis Project - WITH NON-PROBLEMATIC SOLUTION RECOMMENDATIONS”.

Basically, it suggests that both organisations could eliminate their marketing expenses by simply not marketing a product that almost every man, woman and child is familiar with. It’s a lovely thought. But then what would I have to post about? Content and quite possibly at one with the universe because stupidly receptive brain was free from bombardment of unsolicited data, maybe I could just read a book.

I’ve heard The Da Vinci Code is good.