Television advertisements today are made to fit with the programs that they are shown with. With advertisements being made to fit with programs and the advertisements also made for the people who see them or the kind of people who watch the television program (Dennis). I will try to answer the question using some common examples to show how it is used in advertising and where it may go tomorrow. This essay will discuss how television and advertisements viewed during programs have the same nature. This essay will make it obvious that advertising is meant to go together with the programs that are being seen at the time. This is most effective when it is in a similar subject as the television programs that are being watched like sports themed commercials during major sporting events and other commercials written and produced for those types of television shows.
Sports events are probably the most the common type of programs that bring in television commercials that are designed for the type of program. Often in American football there are beer commercials and advertisements for other products that either use sports players – in this example football stars are saying that they are good or advertisements that have football content. These commercials are usually made to get men who watch these sports events to buy their goods. They are often between twenty and thirty years old as these are the people who the main ones who are watching the sport. Sports shows are not the only types of programs that encourage companies to sell their goods specifically for the type of television show. Another common way that advertisers try to get their ads to their buyers is by playing them on channels or during certain programs that they expect the people who will buy their goods to be watching. For example many commercials for electronics and computers come on the television in the middle of science fiction shows that are like Star Trek or on television channels that show a lot of science fiction programs. Recently television programs have also been allowing commercials for other television channels and this can be seen there as well with commercials for television programs for women on the channels and times when women will be watching the television (Eisend). There are still some common commercials that could be put on television at almost any time. Most commercials are trying to only get the people who buy their goods interested in some way by using the show that they are being run on. It is either this or it is used on the exact channel that viewers can see them on. The type of advertisements has been around for a long time. Advertisers started to understand that different parts of the population watched at different times of the day and watched certain channels. The advertising then started to change to become attractive to those viewers. Television programs during the daytime drama shows began running ads for cleaning items and other things that women would be buying. More male audience advertising was shown in the evening as this was when men would finish work and watch their television programs.
Another good example of this is when cartoons are run on Saturday mornings or on a channel that only plays cartoons or channels that only children watch like the Disney channel. Those ads are for products that kids either buy on their own with their own pocket money or are able to suggest to their parents to buy. Some of these items include clothing and cereal or fruit snacks and even electronic products and toys. The commercials are specifically made to be attractive to children and are very good at using cartoon characters and colorful pictures to sell products instead of using adults who just tell us the benefits of using the products like in most commercials. Some experts have written that in their research that the snack foods that children eat are a direct result of the advertising that they are exposed to (Goldberg). An example of this - in his paper Goldberg said the great amount that children's advertising is used and explained regulation in some capitalist countries trying to limit the number of advertisements shown during television programs. Television commercials persuade everyone who sees them but children are more affected by the messages that they see. One of the common excuses among advertising is that everyone is doing it. This has been the case since the very first advertiser in North America - Bolova Watches. They had paid four dollars to put an advertisement on television during a baseball game. As stated on their website the advertisement had a clock on a map of the United States while a voice told the audience that the U.S.A runs on Bolova time (Bolova Watches). Now television commercials are present many more times during most television viewing time and most are made attracted to the people the company thinks buys its goods in some way.
Not only in television do ads attract viewers in the middle of programs but companies even put in advertising messages in the advertisements of the company running the television programs. This is more used in radio when announcers in the middle of telling you what songs are coming up or have just played talk about a product or service (Katz). This gets the most attention because advertising companies know that people are paying attention. In television the products are placed in popular television programs so that the people sees them being used by their favorite celebrity and buys the product without thinking when they see it the next time. It is expected that this will continue in the future because of the creation of recording electronics (VHS and Bluray and others) which can record programs and allow users to fast forward through the commercials (Mitropoulos). This means that the advertising will be seen by fewer people. Despite this the relationship between advertising and the programs that they are included on will become even bigger. Cooking shows will sell cooking items and maybe even food. Sporting shows will more easily sell products related to sports or athletes.
The relationship between advertisements and programs develops at the same time with each using the other to work with. Advertisers use the television shows to bring in people who will buy their items. Television shows need advertisements as these bring in money to make the programs and more money means that there will be better programs. The next step for these commercials is to completely share the subject of the shows that they advertise on (Duncan). This will change some of the ways the audience of shows will cooperate with them. As internet is used with more and more television sets and the different types of entertainment becomes all in one we should expect to see a great deal of cooperation between television programs and advertisements. It is quite noticeable that television programs are very close to the advertising and the commerce or even the type of programming that is being viewed by the audience they want. Sports players will sell products during football games. Commercials for computers will be shown during science fiction shows and women's health products will be featured during daytime dramas and shows meant for women.