Hero The Cult - Round 2

There are new ads for the HTC Hero smart phone.  A day or two prior to those ads showing up new ads for Scientology appeared.  The old ads for Scientology are in a higher rotation now.   Perhaps the new Scientology ads didn't test as well, or perhaps it's because the new Scientology ads are not as similar the new HTC Hero ads as the old Scientology ads are.

Funny how the Scientology ads kind of vanished until right before the new HTC Hero ads started showing up everywhere.  Suddenly the ads for Scientology were everywhere.  It's as if the clams couldn't afford the air time until HTC's next big media buy, then they suddenly had the money to spend on advertising.  Sort of like how the first big ad blitz featuring those ads that look and sound so much like the previous set of HTC Hero ads appeared shortly before said ads.  Makes you wonder about things, doesn't it?

As the only TV I get is via satellite, my advertising landscape is different than it is for those who watch via cable, over-the-air local reception, or teh InterTubes, so "everywhere" for me is somewhat less hyperbolic than you might think.  Agencies can buy in bulk from companies that own multiple channels and really save, on the proviso that most of the spots will be preempted by local carriers.  So buying five spots an hour on the Discovery networks means I have the opportunity to see the same ad five times an hour on seven different channels (the People Blowing up Stuff at Work Channel, the Way Too Many Children Channel, Animal Planet, the Sex, Drugs and Circus Freaks Channel, the War Channel [not to be confused with A&E's Nazi Network], the Science Films They Should be Showing in Schools Channel, and the Serial Killer Channel), while someone with basic cable would see the same ad once or twice an hour, the other times local ads and national ads targeting a specific region would be seen.  Basic cable would probably have only the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and TLC to watch it on.  While it's possible for the satellite provider to preempt a bulk ad with one they've sold, that doesn't happen nearly as often.

As Ian Flemming wrote, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."  Given how complicated the world is these days I'm willing to add a margin of error of one.  Twice may still be anomalous, or it could be evidence of collusion.