LA Times: A nation under siege … by product placement

"This ad-saturated environment tends to foster a culture of smirking disbelief, a … knee-jerk skepticism that makes people untrusting of anything they hear from anybody," says Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University.

Product placement and other forms of intrusive advertising have made most people simply ignore and tune out what they see and hear.

Like those who argue that the the pop up problem is simply an issue of frequency might also argue that this is a frequency problem as well. Just too much marketing intrusion into our lives for it to be effective.

The problem though is this: Just try to ask advertisers to limit frequency and they'll answer, "When my competitor does." Which, of course, means it will never happen.