banktime.com

I just love going to the movies, don’t you? There’s something so special about the whole experience – although there probably should be, when you are paying ten dollars for a ticket! The smell of the popcorn, the vast screen and surround sound system that are so much better than watching DVDs at home, the chance to get a look at the coolest new features coming out soon… oh yeah, and three-quarters of a minute of educational advertising on the best ways to maintain good credit during the holiday shopping season. Yes, you just read that right.

Under crushing pressure from consumer advocacy groups who say that the U.S. government has done too little to safeguard the financial welfare of citizens during the last few years of recession, the Fed announced recently that it would sponsor forty-five second ad before first-run motion pictures in twelve metro areas across the country, starting last week and continuing throughout the first week of December. The goal is to advise citizens on how to wisely use their plastic during the busiest shopping season of the year. The ads are timely, given how hard the average American household is struggling with debt right now. The government has long been accused of having at least partially kicked off the current monetary crisis by having done too little to curtail risky lending practices.

According to a spokesperson for the Federal Reserve, the advertisements’ message is pretty simple: pay your bills on time, make sure that you don’t overspend your credit limit, do what you can to avoid paying expensive fees, and try to make more than the minimum payment each month on your account. That shoppers should not give in to guilt-driven gifting, not overspend a predetermined budget for buying presents, and closely monitor their card statements and credit report during this time are not explicitly stated, although I wish that they were.

This is not Washington’s first foray into advertising on the silver screen. At the beginning of this year, the Fed pair for ads in major markets detailing how homeowners can determine and avoid mortgage foreclosure rescue scams. Those ads ran in advance of the announcement of the Obama administration’s mortgage modification plan.

I’m not exactly sure how well this plan is ultimately going to work for the government, although I definitely have to give lawmakers their well-deserved props for creativity. Let’s face it, guys – when’s the last time that you went to the movies and half the audience even made it to their seats before the first five minutes of the feature had passed? That’s to say nothing of the seat-shuffling, snack munching, last-minute texting / cell phone calling and chit-chat that goes on during the ads and previews. I’m not sure that the givernment’s money will be well-spent, since most of the theater isn’t really paying attention during that time. And that’s to say that those consumers at the highest risk for making poor credit decisions this season even have enough money to go to the cinema! I don’t know; we’ll just have to see if this initiative actually has any results.