Friday, January 26, 2007

Lame-o TV Preview

So our neighbors, Deb and Bud, invited us to this TV Preview night. They had received an invitation in the mail and got 4 tickets. It was described as the kind of thing where you go and watch some shows that they are planning to put on the air and then you comment on them. I thought that sounded pretty neat and so we decided to go. So later Deb realized that it said we would be watching both programs AND commercials and so we started to get skeptical about it. We went there and there were about 200 people packed into this small meeting room at the Sheraton in Bucks County. They had 4 TVs set up in the front (probably about 20 or 21 inch screens each). We were seated in almost the very last row so the TVs were pretty tiny. Then we had to fill out this form which consisted of putting our address on the front, and then circling one item from each of about 12 pages of products (such as shampoo, toilet paper, etc.) that we really wanted. It was weird. Then they chose three winners to receive prizes. We then watched a horrible "romantic drama" program along with some commercials. We then answered one page of questions about the show. Next, we filled out practically the same package as the first thing (circle items you want) and they picked 3 more winners. Then we watched a sitcom that was O.K., but was clearly recorded some time in the early 80's (definitely NOT a new show). As Deb pointed out, there were no computers in the office so you know it is old! Anyway, after that we had one more page of questions about that show. After that, we had about 12 pages of marketing questions for a variety of products, such as urinary disease medications, dog foods, acid reflux medications, toilet paper, and others. This whole thing lasted from about 7:30 to 10:00, only about 35 or 40 minutes of which was actually watching television programming. The description they sent out was so clearly designed to trick you into coming and participating in this marketing research study. The best part? They didn't offer ANY refreshments. Not even water! You would think maybe they would have coffee and pastries or something, but no! Nothing! Maybe they could have given out something to everyone who came? Nope. We got absolutely nothing for our time. It took about 40 minutes to get there, 40 minutes to get back, and 2.5 hours of crap! I think Deb felt really bad about it, but I didn't mind. At least now I can complain about how stupid it was! It was somewhat amusing that it was so stupid. But just so you know, if you ever get one of these "invitations", DON'T DO IT!!

1 comment:

  1. Sorry this was such a bad time. But, as you said, it does give you a new experience to talk about.

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