According to Michael Parsons, we are usually not aware how
advertisements affect our lives. When he travelled to East Berlin
as a child, he was shocked by the differences of the urban landscape, because he missed the
advertisements as sources of colour and turbulence. He noticed significant differences in pace and tone between advertisements in the US and in the UK. He also highlights, that US television programmes are constantly interrupted by short advertisements that are, however, already accepted by the Americans. But advertisers always find new ways to trick the unsuspected customer. As an added bonus to these, a new directory enquiry service is spreading in the UK that gives you a phone number for free, but in exchange you have to listen to an advertisement. Any encounter with DVDs that contain no commercial interruptions more and more becomes a pleasurable experience in our days.