Current mood:

cynical

I've been scammed!
So, yea. The going to watch TV show pilots thing that I was psyched about going to tonight? Total marketing scam. We were pretty cynical through the whole thing, but still figured they were at least partially telling the truth about the fact that we were some kind of a test group for some pilots. Came home and looked it up online - wow. Yea. Not.

The event was held by Television Preview , which is actually a company called RSC the Quality Measurement Company, a TV commercial research company. And apparently, they've been doing this for many years. According to this Sept. 2000 article in a Toronto paper they've been doing it since the 70s.
And according to this May 2001 entry on teevee.com they've been showing the exact same two shows we watched tonight since at least then!

In July 2004, pitch.com also did an article on this. One of the "pilots" they show is from a show called City, which, according to TVtome aired 13 episodes in 1990 on CBS. The show starred Valerie Harper, and the pitch.com's article reports that her husband and business partner was unaware that they were using her show in this way, and seemed a bit upset about it!

The other show was this horrible romantic thriller called "Soulmates", starring Kim Raver of Third Watch and 24 fame. I've been unable to find any information on if she, or any of the other folks involved in that have any idea of how this material is being used. In fact, I've been unable to find any info about this so-called show outside of it being shown in these events all over the country for the past few years.
The concept was supposed to be based on the movie Dead Again with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. The writing and editing was so dreadful that I was suspecting right away that it wasn't a real pilot. But I went ahead and dutifully filled out my comments about it - "so funny I laughed until I cried!" (It wasn't intended to be funny)
When asked how I felt about the commercials, my comments ranged from "I hate commercials" to "god, I hate commercials" to "still hate commercials."

But the REAL POINT of the whole evening was that they also showed us commercials, and asked us lots of marketing questions like what our favorite brands of various things are and what we think about the ads shown and some subtle ways of trying to find out if seeing an ad will change our opinions on what product we want via assuring us that they'll send us prizes! (PRIZES!!)

The whole event was hosted by what seemed to be a very bewildered self-described "MC for hire." He seemed just as tortured as the rest of us while asking the questions about bladder control and denture cream and informed us that he'd not been allowed to read the script ahead of time. We overheard him say something after the event about being a member of Chicago's Second City, but who knows? I felt bad for the poor guy.

All in all, it was an interesting night. I think I'm still glad I went - just to experience the whole thing. Although my neck is incredibly sore from sitting upright for so long.

I did, however, learn one very important lesson:
A room full of grown adults will still giggle out loud when forced to watch commercials about bladder control medication. Oh yes, maturity is over rated.