In March 2021 I wrote about incorporating advertising into television programmes. I didn’t think much of the idea, and drew attention to how MAD magazine had treated it some years ago.

According to an article on the BBC website, it’s now possible to insert advertisements into movies digitally. It even talks about having artificially-added banners inserted into televised sports events. The products placed in this way could even be changed in the future.

It seems to me that there’s an ethical dimension to this. There’s something a bit “iffy” about inserting an advert into a programme that wasn’t there originally. If, for example, I were able to reengineer videos of my presentations such that each one had a backdrop of my newsletter banner (see above) on the wall behind me, wouldn’t I be acting dishonestly? However, on a practical level this practice doesn’t seem to breach UK advertising codes, which state that adverts must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content. Well obviously, a banner advertising Bloggs Beer is an advert, so presumably the advertiser has done nothing legally wrong. (I’m not an expert on advertising codes and their legality, so don’t mistake these ramblings for advice.)

Perhaps the advertising codes, along with plenty of other things, need to be re-examined to take into account these new possibilities.