Media Meditation #2: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I watched one of the newer episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "Mac and Dennis Break Up," on Hulu (www.hulu.com). During one of the scenes, around 7 minutes into the episode, the characters Charlie and Frank are conversing and what not in their living room. At the same time, Charlie is eating a bag of Cheetos Puff, which is pretty blatant. The room is full of earthy, dark colors and the bag just stands out, so clear that you can see the label Cheetos.
Charlie and the bag of Cheetos carries into the next scene, where another character asks to have some Cheetos. The bag of Cheetos appears in several scenes and is referred to by the characters. Is this intentional or not? What is actually happening is that companies actually purchase ad space in tv shows, movies, and video games and place their brand's products as a form of advertisement. This shows how surrounded we are by advertisers who view us simply as consumers and want to persuade us to buying their product every chance they get.
The scene with the Cheetos bag effects the Limbic part of the brain because the bag stands out in a dark, earthy room and makes you actually think about that bag.
This also demonstrates an economical shift in our culture because advertisers and companies now use the media as a medium for their product. They are so money hungry they place ads wherever they can purchase space.
Lastly, by having the Cheetos bag in the scenes is an attempt to persuade viewers to buy Cheetos. They specifically use the plain folk and bandwagon technique. Even though it is a television show, the characters are not necessarily famous which is why it is the plain folk technique rather than a testimonial.