Technobabbles I try to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Don't be fooled.

Macy’s Parade: Entertainment or Disguised Advertising?

I'm not going to write another 600-word opus on this (I have other things that need doing), but I do want to point out a few things I noticed about the Macy's Parade yesterday morning.

First off, did anyone else notice that, at least on NBC, the commercials were synchronized with the balloons and floats that were going by? I mean! Examples: the Barbie float went by, with the singer happily (?) belting out a song from the new Barbie movie, and then the next commercial break, we get treated to a promotional ad for the DVD and Blu-ray release. The Snoopy balloon floats by, then the next commercial break has a commercial with Snoopy in it (this one isn't so bad; Snoopy was just a minor figure, not the subject). And the most blatant one, the Ronald McDonald balloon, accompanied by glowing comments from the press box and followed by a McDonald's commercial.

Not only were the commercials synchronized (I'd list more examples, but that's what I get for waiting until the next day); the announcers were also paying so much lip service to all the various children's figures I thought they'd sprain something (which mightn't have been a bad thing, come to think of it). Dora the Explorer goes by and they extol her virtues (responsibility, exploration, teaching Spanish...). The Sesame Street float comes along and those reporters just launch into a tirade about how Sesame Street has been so successful and how it's so good for our kids. Scooby-Doo's balloon arrives, and they go off on how good that is.

They even swooned over the Google balloon -- can't argue with that . (OK, there was no Google balloon, but there should have been.)

On top of all these thinly-disguised marketing pitches -- appealing no doubt to the kids watching on national TV -- the cameras never seemed to want to focus on what was going on. Instead, they cheated the shots to get the Macy's signs in the frame as much as possible. Especially the "The Biggest Store in the World" sign out front. I remember one balloon in particular when the camera crew just seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that they were cutting off part of the balloon in favor of keeping the Macy's sign on-screen. Even when they zoomed in, the balloon still wasn't centered. Advertising, advertising, advertising...

Before I let go of your ear and go back to my regularly scheduled, er, work, let me just mention their musical selections. Usually when I watched the parade in the past, the music was quite good, performed by a lot of artists I'd heard of for as long as I could remember. This year, there were obscure country-western singers (I don't do that stuff), first-time-on-Broadway artists, British what's-her-names, and a whole bunch of other people and bands that I'd just plain never seen before yesterday morning. And don't forget their incredible appetite for Disney stars -- haven't we heard enough about the High School Musical crew by now (and the show itself)?

What I'm trying to point out is that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (its full name, of course) appears to my point of view to be nothing more than advertising for Macy's, the already-popular children's characters, and all the unknown artists, bands, and performing groups that walk the route. I'm just saying, it doesn't seem like it's pure entertainment without a capitalistic motive.

Whoops, looks like this one's about as long as my last post. Oh well, I tried...

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I'm not going to write another 600-word opus on this (I have other things that need doing), but I do want to point out a few things I noticed about the Macy's Parade...