Television Advertising

Contrary to popular belief, most ads are not designed to make consumers want to buy the product. Using examples from popular international campaigns, this book provides insight into the minds of both creators and consumers of advertising. It demonstrates why one brand is more likely to come to mind than another, dispels the myths behind subliminal advertising, reveals the tricks successful advertisers use, and clarifies how and why some messages work and some misfire. Illustrations.

This volume brings together leading academic researchers and industry professionals to discuss the underlying factors that determine where cable TV advertising is today and what can and should be done in the future. The authors are united in their belief that cable TV advertising has not lived up to its original promise because key players--system operators, programmers, and advertisers--still act as if cable TV is an alternative to traditional mass audience broadcast rather than a fundamentally new and unique medium.

Concern is growing about the effectiveness of television advertising regulation in the light of technological developments in the media. There is currently a rapid growth of TV platforms in terrestrial, satellite, and cable formats and these will soon move into digital transmission. These all offer opportunities for greater commercilization through advertising on media that have not previously been exploited. In democratic societies, there is a tension between freedom of speech rights and the harm that might be done to children through commercial messages. This book explores all of these issues and looks to the future in considering how effective codes of practice and regulation will develop.

What happens when kids are held captive to an endless stream of MTV-like television commercials? Armed with a tape recorder, Fox, a language and literacy researcher, spent two years interviewing over 200 students in rural Missouri schools. Why? Because more than eight million students in 40% of America's schools watch TV commercials as part of Channel One's broadcast every day. Students "read" commercials far more often than they read Romeo and Juliet. These ads now constitute America's only national curriculum. In this groundbreaking study, Fox explores how these commercials affect kids' thinking, language, and behavior.

Kaid and Johnston report the results of a systematic and thorough analysis of virtually all of the political commercials used in general election campaigns from 1952 through the 1996 presidential contest.