Red Alert! Enough With the Teasers Already
Yet again, a manufacturer is releasing an image which shows a bit of a car to generate excitement at the prospect of seeing . . . the rest of the car. Wasn’t there a board game like this, where you had to guess the whole image as little pieces were revealed? Well, I find the hide-and-seek, slow-reveal automotive press release shtick an inherently infantile practice. Resisting the urge to blame Autoblog for this outbreak of electronic peek-a-boo, thrilled as they must have been with the 235 “teaser” shots provided by FoMoCo in the run up to the entirely predictable 2010 Mustang, I will not resist the urge to call this technique the autoblogospherical equivalent of dickless porn. Do I really care what a new fender vent looks like?
Show me the whole damn thing or I’m switching to ESPN. By the same token, you’d kinda hope that anyone who could stump-up the money for a new Rolls Royce 200EX wouldn’t be spending his or her day trolling the internet for something, anything to give them something, anything, an idea what the car will look like in Geneva. What’s your take on this titillation technique? Does it frustrate you, help you prepare you for a cargasm, both or neither?
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I hate teasers. For anything. And the media is the worst offender. On radio and television shows, they tell you the teaser at the beginning of the hour, then every time they go to a commercial and each time they come from a commercial. You have to wait until the end of the show/newscast/program/next-day to hear the actual content. The worst is the evening news. They bleat out how important such-and-such topic is, then they say "more at 11" or "get all the details tomorrow at 5". My father used to say, "if it's THAT important, why not just tell me now?" It's okay to give a quick run-down at the beginning of the hour of what you're going to cover, but don't hammer me over the head at each commercial break with a topic that you're only going to spend 30 seconds on at :57 after the hour. The teaser now officially has the OPPOSITE effect on me. I immediately fire up my IE or Firefox and look up the damned article for myself. Whether or not I find it, I usually promptly change the channel. I don't hear the commercials, because I refuse to go back. I short circuit the business model when I find another source for the story content. And I love that. Don't get me wrong. I understand the business model, and advertisements do not offend me. But teasers are insulting to me, so I won't have any of that!
IT's just vulgar , a German appropriation of what a Roll's should look like !
Thanks a lot. Your use of the phrase "dickless porn" has officially banned your site from my workplace. Now what do I read at lunch?
well Robert, its always annoyed me to be honest, with this technique when you get to the show, you already have seen everything that needs to be seen. the old days where you would be blown away are long gone. i think it's about time they return... additionally, with this technique, press days at autoshows have become precessional, and all about the people and the plans rather than the cars. and to be honest i'm more a car guy whatever happens behind the scenes is for the realms of the financial times or TTAC for that fact. but when it comes to auto show unveilings, i'd rather not know what's under the sheets untill i see it.