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Television advertisement

Paid commercial segment on television

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
14 min read
Source updated August 3, 2026
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A television advertisement (also called a commercial, spot, break, advert, or ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. Advertisers and marketers may refer to television commercials as TVCs, while Japan refers to them as CMs (Commercial Messages).

Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. During the 2010s, the number of commercials has grown steadily, though the length of each commercial has diminished. Advertisements of this type have promoted a wide variety of goods, services, and ideas ever since the early days of the history of television. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research in the United States, or BARB in the UK, is often used as a metric for television advertisement placement, and consequently, for the rates which broadcasters charge to advertisers to air within a given network, television program, or time of day (called a "day-part").

In multiple countries, including the United States, television campaign advertisements are commonplace in a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted, while some countries, such as Norway, completely ban political advertisements.

The first official paid television advertisement came out in the United States on July 1, 1941, at 2:30 p.m., over New York station WNBT (subsequently WNBC) before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00 (reports vary), displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time", appeared in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute. The first TV ad broadcast in the UK went on air on ITV on September 22, 1955, advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste. In Asia, the first TV ad broadcast appeared on Nippon Television in Tokyo on August 28, 1953, advertising Seikosha (subsequently Seiko); it also displayed a clock with the current time.

The television market has grown to such an extent that it was estimated to reach $69.87 billion for TV ad spending in the United States for 2018.

01General background

Television advertising involves three main tasks: creating a television advertisement that meets broadcast standards, placing the advertisement on television to reach the desired customer and then measuring the outcomes of these ads, including the return on investment.

To accomplish the first step means different things to different parts of the world depending on the regulations in place. In the UK for example, clearance must be given by the body Clearcast. Another example is Venezuela where clearance is governed by a body called El Centro Nacional Autónomo de la Cinematografía (CNAC). The clearance provides a guarantee to the broadcasters that the content of the advertisement meets legal guidelines. Because of this, special extended clearance sometimes applies to food and medical products as well as gambling advertisements.

The second is the process of TV advertising delivery and usually incorporates the involvement of a post-production house, a media agency, advertising distribution specialists and the end-goal, the broadcasters.

At New York's TV Week in November 2018, the TV advertising model was described by Turner Broadcasting System as broken.

Television was still in its experimental phase in 1928, but the medium's potential to sell goods, services, and ideas was already predicted by this Radio News cover from that year.
Television was still in its experimental phase in 1928, but the medium's potential to sell goods, services, and ideas was already predicted by this Radio News cover from that year.

03Characteristics

Advertising agencies often use humor as a tool in their creative marketing campaigns. Some psychological studies have attempted to demonstrate the effects of humor and their relationship to empowering advertising persuasion.

Animation is often used in advertisements. The pictures can vary from hand-drawn traditional animation to computer animation. By using animated characters, an advertisement may have a certain appeal that is difficult to achieve with actors or mere product displays. Animation also protects the advertisement from changes in fashion that would date it. For this reason, an animated advertisement (or a series of such advertisements) can be long-running, several decades in multiple instances. Notable examples are the series of advertisements for Kellogg's cereals, starring Snap, Crackle and Pop and also Tony the Tiger. The animation is often combined with real actors. Animated advertisements can achieve lasting popularity. In any popular vote for the most memorable television advertisements in the UK, such as on ITV or Channel 4, the top positions in the list invariably include animations, such as the classic Smash and Creature Comforts advertisements.

Other long-running advertising campaigns catch people by surprise, even tricking the viewer, such as the Energizer Bunny advertisement series. It started in the late 1980s as a simple comparison advertisement, where a room full of battery-operated bunnies was seen pounding their drums, all slowing down except one, with the Energizer battery. Years later, a revised version of this seminal advertisement had the Energizer bunny escaping the stage and moving on (according to the announcer, he "keeps going and going and going..."). This was followed by what appeared to be another advertisement: viewers were oblivious to the fact that the following "advertisement" was actually a parody of other well-known advertisements until the Energizer bunny suddenly intrudes on the situation, with the announcer saying "Still going..." (the Energizer Battery Company's way of emphasizing that their battery lasts longer than other leading batteries). This ad campaign lasted for nearly fifteen years. The Energizer Bunny series has itself been imitated by others, via a Coors Light Beer advertisement, in motion pictures, and by current advertisements by GEICO Insurance.

Use of popular music

Many television advertisements feature songs or melodies ("jingles") or slogans designed to be striking and memorable, which may remain in the minds of television viewers long after the span of the advertising campaign. Some of these ad jingles or catch-phrases may take on lives of their own, spawning gags that appear in films, television shows, magazines, comics, or literature. These long-lasting advertising elements may be said to have taken a place in the pop culture history of the demographic to whom they appeared. An example is the enduring phrase, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should", from the eighteen-year advertising campaign for Winston cigarettes from the 1950s to the 1970s. Variations of this dialogue and direct references to it appeared as long as two decades after the advertising campaign expired. Another example is "Where's the Beef?", which grew so popular it was used in the 1984 presidential election by Walter Mondale. Another popular catch-phrase is "I've fallen and I can't get up", which still appears occasionally, over two decades after its first use. Some advertising agency executives have originated more than one enduring slogan, such as Mary Wells Lawrence, who is responsible for such famous slogans as "Raise your hand if you're Sure", "I♥New York" and "Trust the Midas touch."

Prior to the 1970s, music in television advertisements was generally limited to jingles and incidental music; on some occasions lyrics to a popular song would be changed to create a theme song or a jingle for a particular product. An example of this is found on the recent popular Gocompare.com advert that utilises "Over There", the 1917 song popular with United States soldiers in both World Wars and written by George M. Cohan during World War I. In 1971 the converse occurred when a song written for a Coca-Cola advertisement was re-recorded as the pop single "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" by the New Seekers, and became a hit. Additionally songwriter Paul Williams composed a piece for a Crocker Bank commercial which he lengthened and The Carpenters recorded as "We've Only Just Begun". Some pop and rock songs were re-recorded by cover bands for use in advertisements, but the cost of licensing original recordings for this purpose remained prohibitive in certain countries (including the U.S.) until the late 1980s.

The use of previously recorded popular songs in American television advertisements began in earnest in 1985 when Burger King used the original recording of Aretha Franklin's song "Freeway of Love" in a television advertisement for the restaurant. This also occurred in 1987 when Nike used the original recording of the Beatles' song "Revolution" in an advertisement for athletic shoes. Since then, multiple classic popular songs have been used in similar fashion. Songs can be used to concretely illustrate a point about the product being sold (such as Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" used for Chevy trucks), but more often are simply used to associate the good feelings listeners had for the song to the product on display. In some cases the original meaning of the song can be irrelevant or even opposite to the implication of the use in advertising; for example Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life", a song about heroin addiction, has been used to advertise Royal Caribbean International, a cruise ship line. Music-licensing agreements with major artists, especially those that had not previously allowed their recordings to be used for this purpose, such as Microsoft's use of "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones and Apple Inc.'s use of U2's "Vertigo" became a source of publicity in themselves.

In early instances, songs were often used over the objections of the original artists, who had lost control of their music publishing, the music of the Beatles being perhaps the most well-known case; more recently artists have actively solicited use of their music in advertisements and songs have gained popularity and sales after being used in advertisements. A famous case is Levi's company, which has used several one hit wonders in their advertisements (songs such as "Inside", "Spaceman", and "Flat Beat"). In 2010, research conducted by PRS for Music revealed that "Light & Day" by The Polyphonic Spree is the most performed song in UK TV advertising.

Sometimes a controversial reaction has followed the use of some particular song on an advertisement. Often the trouble has been that people do not like the idea of using songs that promote values important for them in advertisements. For example, Sly and the Family Stone's anti-racism song, "Everyday People", was used in a car advertisement, which angered some people.

Generic scores for advertisements often feature clarinets, saxophones, or various strings (such as the acoustic/electric guitars and violins) as the primary instruments.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, electronica music was increasingly used as background scores for television advertisements, initially for automobiles, and later for other technological and business products such as computers and financial services. Television advertising has become a popular outlet for new artists to gain an audience for their work, with some advertisements displaying artist and song information onscreen at the beginning or end.

Though advertisements for cigarettes are banned in multiple countries, with the notable exception of Indonesia, such advertising could still be seen in the sponsorship of events such as auto racing during much of the late 20th century and during the 2000s
Though advertisements for cigarettes are banned in multiple countries, with the notable exception of Indonesia, such advertising could still be seen in the sponsorship of events such as auto racing during much of the late 20th century and during the 2000s
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Television advertisement”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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