What Is an Advertisement Today?

Like most of you hard working Americans, I am not "that person" who gets to spend their day laying on the sofa with a Coke and a bag of Cheetos watching daytime TV. My life consists of much more than watching an endless stream of judge shows and talk shows, only interrupted by the ads for lawyers, prescription drugs, and miracle skillets, and of course those seeking Mesothelioma victims. There is this thing called "work."

However, my one indulgence in my admittedly very flexible workday as a strategic management professor and consultant is my daily lunchtime routine. No, I don't indulge in a three-martini lunch or even graze at the Golden Corral. Rather, I spend an hour each day working out my stress and hopefully helping my cardio health at my fancy health club (yes, the Judgement Free Zone® of Planet Fitness). Sadly, I'm not training for any more marathons or even 10-K's, but I'm trying to keep my AARP-aged body somewhat in shape (and that may even be debatable!).

My routine is to base my treadmill or elliptical selection for the day's workout based on what happens to be available on the overhead TVs. And so yes, as when I am "working," I multitask when exercising, switching between several screens at a time. I'm often drawn to following "Breaking News" on the news channels (and today, it's all breaking news it seems, right?), watching people cooking and eating incredible foods on the Food Network, and seeing how easy it is to buy million dollar properties by only looking at three homes on HGTV! And yes, just every once in a while, I feel guilty in doing so, but I must admit that much like a bug to the light I am drawn to switch my audio to see just who "is" or "is not" the father on Jerry Springer!

Earlier this week though, my attention went from the latest "what's wrong with LeBron" panel discussion on ESPN to a TV just down from me. I was exercising an hour or so later than usual; and so thus, yes, in a first-world level problem, the shows were different than what I usually had to pick from during my standing 12:00 (or so) appointment cardio hour.

So this day, I happened upon the show The Doctors. I knew that the show had been on television in syndication for some time, but yes, even I was surprised when checking its IMDB page that the show was now in its eleventh season of dispensing medical advice to the masses on daytime TV! Now, this was admittedly not my first time having seen parts of the show, having been drawn to segments that appeal to "men of a certain age," like dieting tips, baldness cures, and yes, might all my problems come from me being "Low-T?" (Of course, to be followed by the ever-present Frank Thomas ad for Nugenix!)

Now, the Frank Thomas Nugenix ad is clearly an ad. And with its longevity, it is clearly an ad that is both effective in moving bottles of Nugenix and memorable—both for good and for bad reasons. But while the ad has been made fun of on social media...

...and has been the fodder for comedians (the Bill Burr take on the commercial below is great, but it is most definitely NOT safe for work!)...

...it clearly works! And the viewer can have no doubt that what he or she is watching is clearly an advertisement for the supplement.

So that is why the ten minutes or so of The Doctors that I watched this week really left me with my head scratching (tough to do, I know, with two hands working the elliptical machine and with little hair to begin with, but...). In the segments posted below, Robin McGraw (yes, Dr. Phil's wife) was interviewed by the male hosts of the show, Drs. Travis Stork and Andrew Ordon.

What struck me as odd—really odd—was that in essence, these segments were simply an infomercial for her skin care products from her company, Robin McGraw Revelation. Admittedly, the "news angle," such as it was, was for the one-third of men who, statistics "show," do not use facial care products to begin doing so. According to the doctors hosting The Doctors, men, at least those who want to be a success in life, should follow the lead of "Paolo." He was the actor who was called-out of the audience to testify as to how his skin was made better and his acting career turned on a dime thanks to her products! Paolo literally seemed to now have "Frank Thomas-level confidence" in every audition, thanks to Robin McGraw—and her Revelation line of skin care products, of course. And then there was a second segment, after a totally unrelated commercial, in which Robin McGraw "revealed" how she takes care of her skin to stay so "young looking" at 65, and then showered the audience with free samples of, you guessed it, Robin McGraw Revelation skin care products!

Now, I am not naive. Advertising drives content. One way or another. That is the way the world works. As an "expert" in management strategy, I would expect nothing less in 2019. What appears—and what doesn't appear—in magazines, in newspapers, on television shows, etc. today is driven by corporate interests. Authors have books to sell. Comedians have tickets to sell. And yes, all shows we watch, at least on commercial television, whether they be news, sports, drama, comedy, or "reality," are vehicles to drive the desired audience to purchase the advertisers products. News may be newsworthy, sports may be fascinating, and a good TV show may drive you to tears and/or laughter—and sometimes both—but the ultimate goal, at least for media companies, is not art. Rather, the aim is to draw eyeballs to the advertising that is their revenue source. That is the basic media business model—regardless of mode or form. An whether the ad is a traditional one or a product placement (a huge business today with viewers increasingly zapping through "traditional" commercials), advertisers provide the revenue fuel that makes all media possible—especially television. And yes, as Coach Herm Edwards famously put it, the bottom-line is simple: "You play to win the game!"

What got my blood pressure up on the elliptical while watching this segment on The Doctors (while I was trying to get my heart rate up as well by exercising, of course), was just how absolutely blatant it was that the segments were, in essence, an "ad" for Robin McGraw's skin care line. There was no disclaimer offered to the TV viewer, just two licensed medical doctors and a user extolling the virtues of her products.

What made this even "curiouser," and maddening to me from a business and media ethics standpoint, was when I was able to check the next day for the two Robin McGraw segments to appear on the Web. If you happened to watch the segments on YouTube, there was no disclaimer as to these videos being sponsored in any way.

On the official website for The Doctors however, where two Robin McGraw segments were posted, as you can see in the screenshots below, while there was no disclaimer for the home—or gym, or bar—viewer of the segment when it aired on their show, their website, quite correctly, applied the "*Sponsored Content by Robin McGraw Revelation" disclaimer TWICE on each time the content was displayed. Hmmmmmmm.

And to make matters even more confusing for those visiting The Doctors website, check out the "Related Videos" sidebar, where there is a mix of "sponsored" and not-sponsored content from the show featuring Robin McGraw. Hmmmmmmmmmm!

And on Twitter, @TheDoctors posted a tweet about the segments, but without the sponsored content disclaimer...

Analysis

Confused much? To me, as a management "guy" (and yes, one who needs to take more care of his own skin!), that is exactly the point that I wanted to make in this article! This was simply eye-opening to me as someone of my "ilk," looking to advise executives and teach students as to what makes for a good—and yes, ethical—marketing strategy today. I don't know if this is representative of a larger trend in daytime TV—and perhaps even all of television as media companies and advertisers alike struggle to get their messages through the "clutter" that is modern life today. However, my chance encounter with this particular show and this particular segment certainly raised my concern that the lines may be blurring—really blurring—in the media today between content and advertising.

And by no means am I claiming a "holier than thou" position on this, as I work with as a consultant with content marketers routinely on editing, writing, and placing sponsored content in print. However, this instance seemed like something that was very "different" from what the norms and boundaries have been in the past in terms of clearly separating in the minds of the audience just what exactly they were watching.

In the end, I have great confidence that—for the most part anyway—we American consumers are a pretty discerning bunch in 2019. I think most everyone is sophisticated enough to know that paid product placement is just a reality today. That is why every car in a movie just happens to be a Ford or a Chevy and everyone on a TV show just happens to be drinking a Pepsi or a Coca-Cola product...

And yes, we do know a true "infomercial" any time of day, no matter when it may come on...

And then, of course, we have whole networks that one can watch 24/7 just for the purpose of shopping....

But yes, it is tough enough these days to decipher what is real news and what is "fake news"—and yes, that can be a matter of opinion, depending on your particular political stance, I know. And so it does concern me, from both an ethical perspective and a practical one, that if television programming moves too far in the direction of what I saw on The Doctors with basically an infomercial within a show, featuring Robin McGraw Revelation, without any verbal or visual disclaimer to the viewer that the segments the CEO of the company was appearing on were indeed sponsored by her company, we may move to an even more dangerous place that is perhaps a "bridge too far" in terms of mixing content and advertising.

I will indeed be curious on the reaction to this article. Please do email me directly at [email protected] or comment on my LinkedIn or Twitter posts (see my links below) with this article with your thoughts and insights.

About David Wyld

David Wyld ([email protected]) is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness. He is the founder and publisher of both The IDEA Publishing [The Best in News, Information, and Content Marketing] and Modern Business Press [The Best in Academic Journals].

David Wyld’s Online CV:https://clearvoice.com/cv/DavidWyld

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