TV Commercials

A television advertisement or television commercial is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message.

4 Types of TV advertisements

  • Political TV advertising
  • Product placement
  • Promotion (marketing)
  • Sponsorship

A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group.

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a type of advertising, in which promotionaladvertisements are placed by marketers using real commercial products and services in media, where the presence of a particular brand is the result of an economic exchange. The most common form is movie and television placements and more recently computer and video games.

Promotion involves scattering information about a product, product line, brand, or company.

Example

The publicity for the 40th anniversary of the 1966 NCAA Basketball championship included:

  1. The renaming of a city street
  2. A tie-in with an autobiography with the same title
  3. The screening of a film with the same title
  4. The release of a breakfast cereal box with coordinated materials
  5. A pep rally on a university campus
  6. Media coverage

Sponsor or sponsorship may refer to:

  • Sponsor (commercial) – to support an event, activity, or person.
  • Sponsor (legislative), a person who introduces a bill in the US Congress.
  • Sponsor (military, naval ship naming) – a person who christens a ship at its launch
  • Sponsors, in a twelve-step program, are experienced members who make a service commitment to help others navigate the program.
  • Self-relations Psychotherapy, a form of therapy
  • Child sponsorship, a form of charitable giving

Advertisements take airtime away from programs. In the 1960s a typical hour-long American show would run for 51 minutes excluding advertisements. Today, a similar program would only be 42 minutes long; a typical 30-minute block of time now includes 22 minutes of programming with 6 minutes of national advertising and 2 minutes of local.

In other words, over the course of 10 hours, American viewers will see approximately 3 hours of advertisements, twice what they would have seen in the sixties. Furthermore, if that sixties show is rerun today it may be cut by 9 minutes to make room for the extra advertisements.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the average advertisement was one minute. As the years passed, the average length shrank to 30 seconds, but more of them are now shown during the break, while in the '60's, only one or two advertisements would be shown at each break. However, today a majority of advertisements run in 15-second increments.

What was the world's first legalized television commercial?

There are records of television commercials dating back to 1928 aired by W1XAY in Lexington, Massachusetts.

On Dec. 07 1930, W1XAV in Boston broadcast a show, sponsored by I.J.Fox Furriers on which debuted what is sometimes considered to be the world's first television commercial, but the station was fined as it broke regulations as commercials were not yet legal.

At 2:29 p.m. on July 01 1941 New York City NBC affiliate WNBT aired a 10 second spot before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, displaying a Bulova watch over a map of the U.S., with a voiceover of the company's slogan "America runs on Bulova time!"

The Bulova commercial was the world's first legal television commercial and cost the Bulova Watch Company a whopping $9.00 USD.

The Advantage that TV has Over All Other Mediums

Television is considered the heavyweight champion of all advertising mediums because...

  1. It reaches into more households and touches more people than any other medium.
  2. It uses pictures, words, sounds, and music to emotionally move and motivate prospects to action.
  3. It has the ability to capture the complete attention of your prospect.

What Makes a Good Television Commercial?

The ultimate test of an effective television commercial is NOT how entertaining it was, but did it make the cash register sing? Some commercials are made to be so entertaining and clever that you can't even remember what product or service it was promoting. A good commercial should...

  1. Motivates your prospect to DO something immediately.
  2. Explicitly communicate your product or service's advantage over other choices.
  3. It visually arouses your prospect. (You can test this by turning the sound off and if it still has the same visual effect then you're on to something)
  4. It inspires trust, confidence, and believability.
  5. It provides a single consistent message that penetrates the prospect's mind and stays there for awhile.

Your Commercial vs. Remote Control

People are so jaded to television commercials that you're fighting a losing battle from the start. The remote control is your worst enemy. We've been trained to flip the channel using the remote control as soon as a commercial comes on. A good commercial must grab the attention of viewers and force them to stay and watch your advertisement. That's why the first three to five seconds of your commercial must grab your prospect's attention and compel them to stay and watch. One of the best ways to capture a person's attention is to dramaticize the problem that your product or service solves. For instance, do you remember the Alka Seltzer commercial that showed a person holding on to his stomach saying, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." You could almost feel his stomach pain. Another way is to splash your commercial with a known celebrity. Examples that come to mind are Michael Jackson in Pepsi commercials, Michael Jordan in Nike commercials. Is there a local celebrity that would be willing to endorse your product in a commercial? Local pro sports athletes always work well.

How Long Should My Commercial Be?

Most often you have options as to the length of your television commercial spot. The two most popular are 15 second spots and 30 second spots. Some advertising experts claim that short spots in the 15 second range are 60% - 80% as effective as 30 second spots, in terms of prospect recall. However, if you are rolling out a new product or are trying to establish your name, usually 15 seconds doesn't give you enough time to explain your benefits. 15 second spots are most effective when you have a well-known name and are trying to reaffirm your company's image and name brand. But the bad news is that a 10 - 15 second spot might cost as much as 80% of a 30 second spot. In addition, some stations will automatically bump your commercial if a 30 second commercial comes along. This pricing and bumping policy is sometimes used by stations to discourage short commercials. Some studies have shown that a 30 second spot is up to 90 percent as effective as a 60 second spot. For most small businesses the 30 second spot is the best choice.