If you watch the Ten Sports highlights of the first Compaq Cup match, you’ll see a new marketing ploy. As a replay of a bastman’s wicket begins, a cookie — or biscuit, as my Anglophone friends say — starts to crumble in the right top corner. It’s timed so that the the graphic completely disappears as the ball reaches the batsman, which almost compels the viewer to watch the ad, rather than the replay it supposedly sponsors.
Then the brand name shows up, you’re cursing yourself for falling for it, and the next deluge of mindless, 15-second ads begin. Sigh.
