Advertainment

Abstract

This essay explores the issues implicated by entertainment vehicles created solely to spotlight specific advertisers. From the contemporary exemplar of this paradigm in the highly successful 1990-1998 “Sophisticated Taste” campaign for Taster's Choice(r) instant coffee, in which viewers watched the sparks fly between the characters of Tony and Sharon in a continuing series of ads that functioned as television programming across multiple media platforms, to the most recent incarnation in advergames, online computer games that promote brands, this study considers the nature and implications of perhaps the ultimate evolution of product placement and blurring of the lines between entertainment and commercial persuasion.     

Promoting Tourism,Projecting Power: The Role of Television Commercials

This paper analyzes television commercials (TVCs) launched by Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) from 1999 to 2012. By repeating shots of traditional and Korean popular (k-pop) culture, high-tech machinery, and sportsmanship, it is fair to say that Korean tourism TVCs both reflected and fueled the fad a target audience has for Korea. Hence the commercials not only promoted tourism, they were also projecting national power in general and cultural power in particular. It is surmised that through power projection the TVCs intend to create a country halo effect so that the country’s products and services may enjoy an aspired added value.     

A content analysis of male roles in television advertising: Do traditional roles still hold?

Analysis of male roles in television advertising is limited. In order to remedy this, our research serves as a catalyst by providing a review of the current literature, conducting a preliminary examination of male roles in television advertising, and discussing ways for this area of research to move forward in the future. Specifically, the study conducted in this paper examines television advertising to provide insight on the depiction of males, the portrayed relations between males and other individuals, and how these depictions may have changed from 2003 to 2008. Male depictions in lead roles are contrasted using 907 primetime commercials from 2003 and 961 commercials from 2008 from the four major US broadcasting networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX). Results suggest that some aspects of male depictions in advertising are counter to, while other aspects are reflective of, the changing gender roles occurring in society.     

Information content of Super Bowl commercials 2001–2009

Using Resnik and Stern's (1997) method, this study examines the information content of the ads embedded in the telecasts of the largest sporting event in the United States, Super Bowl. The findings of a content analysis of over 400 Super Bowl ads aired from 2001 to 2009 show that each ad contained on an average two informational cues, which are as much informative as other television ads in the United States. The packaging or shape, quality, and performance cues are the three most frequently used informational cues. In addition, think products appeared to contain a more diverse set of informational cues compared to feel products. Practical and theoretical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Ad ratings when a marketer runs two commercial messages in one television program episode

Advertisers sometimes run two messages in one television program episode. We examine the ad-ratings consequences in passively recorded data. Previous findings suggest that repetition can reduce ad affect and attention duration. Viewers might therefore tend to zap the second message for one brand. If second messages are targeted for zapping, marketers might run only one message per episode. We observe channel changing near the start and end of ad breaks, but no targeted second-message zapping emerged. Marketers might therefore continue to buy two ad units in particularly interesting shows. Interestingly, networks separated the two messages for one brand into early and late program segments. In some shows, this separation may influence the relative ratings of the two messages. For example, the first ad had higher ratings in some shows that followed a much more popular program on the same network. However, the second ad had higher ratings in some game and reality shows with strong audience build-up in late running time. But in each of these situations, the pooled rating for the two ads did not differ from the program’s average ad rating. In sum, our data suggest that marketers don’t provoke targeted ad zapping by running two messages in a program episode.     

Tourism TV Commercials: A Delicate Balance Between Aural and Visual Information Load

This article content analyzes music in tourism TV commercials from 95 regions and countries to identify their general acoustic characteristics. The objective is to offer a general guideline in the postproduction of tourism TV commercials. It is found that tourism TV commercials tend to be produced in a faster tempo with beats per minute close to 120, which is rare to be found in general TV commercials. To compensate for the faster tempo (increased aural information load), less scenes (longer duration per scene) were edited into the footage. Production recommendations and future research are presented.     

企业并购浪潮成因与作用浅析

随着我国社会经济不断发展和买方市场的形成,商业广告的营销环境和广告效果发生了巨大变化, 许多企业开始反省商业广告在市场促销中的真正价值。消费者偏好研究应该是商业广告理性的传播导向。     

Effectiveness of Spanish versus English Language TV Commercials Targeted to the Hispanic Market

Abstract

This paper explores the effectiveness of television commercials transmitted in Spanish with those delivered in English. The research contrasts advertising recall of commercials for an Hispanic population, comparing the recall of Hispanics watching programs in Spanish with Hispanics viewing programs in English. The research suggests that for Hispanics, whether Spanish dominant or bilingual, recall increases when advertising is broadcast in Spanish rather than in English. A counter-intuitive finding is that bilingual Hispanics recall Spanish-language ads to a greater extent than those shown in English.     

Super Bowl ad likeability: Enduring and emerging predictors

US advertisers love the Super Bowl because it reaches a huge and highly receptive audience. One metric that Super Bowl advertisers watch closely is ad likeability as this is correlated with sales success. Tomkovick, Yelkur, and Christians (2001, Journal of Marketing Communications 7: 89–108) studied ad likeability for Super Bowl ads in the 1990s. In this paper, we replicate and extend their research using USA Today's measurement of Super Bowl ad likeability in the decade of the 2000s as our dependent variable of interest. Our findings on 438 Super Bowl ads show that humor, animals, and product category were enduring predictors of ad likeability. Product information and the presence of children in Super Bowl ads were found to be emerging predictors of ad likeability. Most notably, the amount of product information provided in Super Bowl commercials was inversely related to ad likeability. Implications for advertisers are presented, as are conclusions, study limitations and directions for future research.     

Framing New Zealand: Understanding tourism TV commercials

Tourism TV commercials (TVCs) are a source of information for tourists. TVCs serve to assist the consumer in forming a mental image of a destination. These commercials, however, are seldom a topic of research. This paper analyses two New Zealand tourism TVCs, launched separately in 1999 and 2007. It combines video content analysis procedures suggested by Dimitrova, Zhang, Shahraray, Sezan, Huang and Zakhor (2002). and Rose (2007), a destination image research framework proposed by Beerli and Martin (2004) and Echtner and Ritchie (1991), and a film analysis methodology proposed by Giannetti (2008). The objective is to present a systematic approach to the understanding of tourism TVCs. It is found that 87% of camera shots in these two tourism TVCs last no more than one or 2 s; this is equivalent to using a montage to create an emotional or intellectual response. In the new TVC, established themes such as “nature” and “adventure” remain salient, and the way of life of the local people is emphasized. The aim of this study is to assess the destination image as framed through tourism TVCs to pave the way for future study on the visual elements that may influence an audience’s response to TVCs.