Critical Perspectives in Advertising

TV Commercials-the basics  They are produced and aired by how long they are: normally 15, 30 and 60 seconds  Airtime is sold in bulk- people and companies usually don’t just have their CXs run one or two times  The repetition, TV people will tell you, is the key  The more a CX is shown and seen the more effective it can be  The growth of 15 second commercials The growth of 15 second commercials

Case Study-Pinewood Prep CX  This commercial for a local private school ran for two months this summer- HereHere  The purpose was to attract new students  The target market: Dorchester, Berkeley Counties, and North Charleston  Comcast Cable was consulted and an account exec put together a proposal  Pinewood budgeted $2,500 for TV/cable and a few thousand more for newspaper advertising

Measuring Viewers The Nielsen Media Research Way  Ratings and Shares are the numbers used to calculate and compare program viewership  Rating = Number of households watching a program Number of TV households (HH)  Share of Audience= Number of HH watching a program Number of Households Using Television (HUT)  In the U.S. for there are million TV households, according to Nielsen  So a rating/share point equals about 1.16 million homes or households (not viewers)  Some current ratings examples Some current ratings examples  See Frequently asked Questions about TV ratings See Frequently asked Questions about TV ratings  The Super Bowl Annually Pulls in No. 1 ratings in U.S. The Super Bowl Annually Pulls in No. 1 ratings in U.S

Nielsen has it critics  Nielsen’s research is bought by networks, local TV/cable stations and advertisers  Its findings have long been suspect by critics because they are based on a small sample group of 5,000 households (out of 100 million+)  These homes have set-top boxes called audimeters that when used properly, record what shows are being watched on all televisions in a home and what age range, or 'demographic' the person watching falls into  During so-called “sweeps weeks” in February, May, July, and November every U.S. TV market is surveyed– the ratings help local stations determine advertising rates  Paper surveys are filled out by volunteers who may– or may not– diligently and accurately complete them daily

Not Perfect- But Needed  Despite its flaws, the Nielsen (and for radio, Arbitron) ratings present useful information at an affordable price to advertisers and to the TV industry  With our large commercial broadcasting systems, some form of the ratings will always be around  More analytics programs are being developed that can help track the effectiveness of advertising messages  Look at You Tube’s “Insight” feature using my St. Martin video