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A television commercial (often called an advert in the United Kingdom) is a form of advertising in which goods, services, organizations, ideas, etc. are promoted via the medium of television. Most commercials are produced by an outside advertising agency and airtime is purchased from a television channel or network.
The first television commercial aired at 2:29 p.m. on July 1, 1941, when the Bulova Watch Company paid $9 to New York City NBC affiliate WNBT (now WNBC) for a 10-second spot aired before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. It simply displayed a Bulova watch over a map of the U.S., with a voiceover of the company's slogan "America runs on Bulova time!" [1]
The vast majority of television commercials today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials). Commercials of this sort have been used to sell every product imaginable over the years, from household products to goods and services, to political campaigns. The effect of television commercials upon the viewing public has been so successful and so pervasive that it is considered impossible for a politician to wage a successful election campaign, in the United States, without airing a good television commercial.
Source : wikipedia All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license Article : Televison advertisement |
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The future of TV commercials
The introduction digital video recorders, such as the TiVo, and services like Sky Plus, which allow the recording of television programs onto a hard disk, also allow to essentially skip advertisements. Many speculate that television commercials will be eliminated altogether, replaced by advertising in the TV shows themselves. For example, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition advertises Sears, Kenmore, and Home Depot by specifically using products from these companies, and some sports events like the Nextel Cup of NASCAR are named after sponsors.
Another type of commercial that is being done more and more, mostly for advertising TV shows on the same channel, is where the ad overlays the bottom of the TV screen, blocking out some of the picture. A Banner or Logo Bug, as they are called, are referred to by media companies as Secondary Events (2E). This is done in much the same way as a severe weather warning is done, only these happen a lot more often. Sometimes these take up only 5-10% of the screen, but in the extreme, can take up as much as 25% of the viewing area. Some even make noise or move across the screen. One example of this is the 2E ads for Three Moons Over Milford in the months before its premiere. A video taking up approximately 25% of the bottom-left portion of the screen would show a comet impacting into the moon with an accompanying explosion, during another television program.
Google's Eric Schmidt has announced plans to enter the televisions ad delivery and optimization business. This despite the fact that Google only has a text advertising business model at present. There are few details in place about how this may occur, but some have speculated that they will take a tact similar to their business strategy directed at radio broadcast, which included the acquisition of operations system support provider dMarc.
Source : wikipedia All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license Article : Televison advertisement |
