The Execs

Sitting around a long table in a very tall room inside of a very, very tall skyscraper are six men wearing suits.  The cheapest suit in the room, you should know, costs $3,500–and that’s before you buy the custom fitting.  Four of these six men are wearing extremely expensive watches, and two of them are wearing less expensive watches which match the color schemes of their suits.  Whereas you and I spend the majority of our days working with our hands and feet–or, at the very least, our woefully tired fingers and eyes–these men spend their days ringing their brains of good ideas.  At least, that’s what they think they’re doing.

These men are television executives, and they’re out to get you.

You see, we, the audience of their channel, actually afford them their ostentatious, wine-soaked, caviar freckled lives.  If it were not for us, they wouldn’t be sitting around such a large table, in such a large room, in such a tall tower, wearing their expensive and less expensive watches and their expensive suits.  You see, their lives lives are not in part, but entirely made possible through our purchasing power; through our subtle, yet profound manipulation.  In a word, through our shopping .

Today, these men have gathered to figure out precisely how they are going to continue to prosper in this, the greatest year of all time.  Though they’ve been filling their brains with the optimistic articles of over-enthusiastic economists, all but one of them can’t shake the feeling that they’re going to have to do something special–something cunning–this year.  Today–yes, today–they have gathered to figure out precisely how you and I are going to be tricked into buying things in the great year of 2010.

Shall we listen in on their conversation?  

The portly one is beginning to speak.  He’s pointing a chubby finger at a graph that signifies a negative (and remarkably linear) correlation between a show’s popularity and the success rate of its advertising.  He looks worried; beads of sweat are beginning to collect on his brow.

“This, gentlemen, doesn’t make any sense!  If our popular shows can’t push product, then what in the world can?  Why aren’t people shopping?”

“Well,” says the man to his right, a brash young executive, mid-thirties but gray-haired, “Maybe that’s the problem right there!  Shows are getting too good!  Back in the day, we aired junk in the mornings, drivel in the afternoons, and compost at night, and our guys were pushing product like magic!  Maybe we need to dumb things down a bit; pacify the masses, you know?”

The man sitting across from him–an angry-looking man, easily in his eighties–pounds his fist against the table.  “We need a mascot,” he exclaims.  “We used to push product because we had a damn Giraffe screaming at people to buy peanut butter!  I’m telling you, giraffes and shopping go hand in hand!”

“Well, who are the target markets?” bellows another man from the far end of the table.  “Who are we trying to capture?  What are the ads?  Shoe shopping?  TV shopping?  What are we dealing with, here?”

“All of it; all of it!” screams the portly man, working himself up.  “All of our markets are falling through.”  He pauses.  “And besides, a mascot would never work.”  He turns to his side and flicks on the widescreen TV that hangs on the wall.  The room explodes with the cartoonish voice of a giant zebra.  It’s pushing shoes–the nation’s most popular kind of shoes; the kind that everyone wants but no one can get their hands on.  The portly man turns slowly to face the older man.  “Do you still have the costume?”

“Of course.  It’s in my garage.”

this entry on Friendfeed - 1 comment.

Popularity: 1%

View admin's Profile      Subscribe via RSS