AD NAUSEAM
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AIMS TO SUBTRACT PRE-MOVIE ADS
by Kathleen A. Ervin

Every moviegoer can identify with the experience: After paying eight dollars for a ticket, four for popcorn, two for candy and another three-fifty for a watered-down soda, you settle in for a couple of hours of entertainment. The lights go down, the curtain opens and you see . . . commercials?!?

On February 8, 2003 schoolteacher Marian Fisch went to a screening of "The Quiet American" at a Loews Cinema in Chicago. The show started four minutes later than advertised, delayed by commercial messages from the likes of Coca-Cola, Fandango and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For Fisch, enough was enough. Ten days later, a class action lawsuit was filed on her behalf seeking to prevent Loews from continuing to foist "unannounced and unwanted advertisements" on movie audiences. (Greg Scott, a sociology professor at DePaul University, has filed a similar lawsuit against Classic Cinemas, a family-owned 12-theatre chain).

According to Mark Weinberg, one of the attorneys for Fisch, the lawsuit strikes a blow against an increasingly common practice in which theater owners show paid advertisements prior to screenings. "As it is, people are being duped into having their time stolen from them. This lawsuit cuts to a serious problem that affects the quality of all of our lives," says Weinberg.

In response, Loews has called the suit "ludicrous," which Weinberg considers a knee-jerk reaction. "In this case there is a wrong that's being committed," he says. "The theaters are deceiving people solely for the purpose of profiting for themselves."

Ironically, the pre-trailer clips being run by Loews and Classic Cinemas aren't the most egregious examples of pre-show advertising. Regal Entertainment Group—Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theaters and United Artists Theaters—has developed a block of programming it calls "The 2wenty," a 20-minute block of commercials and programming being shown in Regal theaters.

(Commercials at 10:40), Film at 11
While Weinberg understands it's probably unrealistic to expect movie houses to stop showing advertisements, he believes theater owners could be pressured into divulging starting times for both the ads and feature presentation giving ticket holders the option of skipping the commercials. In the meantime, the lawsuit asks Loews for compensation of up to $75 per moviegoer. "In this day and age when time is so precious to all of us and we're all so busy and harried, it seems to me perfectly reasonable that if somebody steals your time—when it's willful, deliberate and repeated—you should be compensated for that," says Weinberg.

Nevertheless, Fisch's counsel insists that the money is a secondary concern. "This lawsuit raises a larger issue," notes Weinberg. "Wherever you look there are ads that are bombarding us. In this particular case we believe commercial creep has gone too far in that it actually violates consumer fraud laws. An illegal practice is being committed and we want to stop it."

If the scattered, spontaneous protests occurring in movie theaters—drowning out the advertisements' audio with a chorus of jeers, for example—is any indication, public opinion seems to be on the consumers' side. "We've tapped into a nerve against the ever-growing commercialization of our culture, and have received literally thousands of e-mails from people supporting our lawsuit," attests Weinberg. Most of the feedback has come through nomovieads.com, a Web site set up by the plaintiff's attorneys that features copies of court documents and promises a discussion board where users will be able to debate the issue.

However, not all of the feedback has been positive, with most of the hostility expressed by people who disdain lawyers and class action lawsuits. "About five percent of the e-mails say we are the cause of the decline of the American way of life—calling us 'greedy lawyers' and the lawsuit 'frivolous,'" admits Weinberg.

Regardless, the formation of the two-month-old Cinema Advertising Council (CAC)—founded for the purpose of promoting in-theater ads—is an indicator that this advertising trend is likely to continue. Even film critic Roger Ebert recently weighed-in on this hot-button issue, writing in the February 9 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Commercials are fine when they underwrite TV or subsidize newspapers, which could not exist without them. But when I pay for a ticket, I am subsidizing the screening, and resent being made into a captive victim. I . . . cannot understand why advertisers would want to attract hostility towards their products by deliberately offending potential customers."

EMAIL THE AUTHOR

RELATED LINKS
http://www.nomovieads.com

http://www.captiveaudience.org

http://www.didntialreadypayforthismovie.com