I was listenin’ to some “Old Time Radio” broadcasts from NBC from the 1950’s, and (I am also referring in part to the TV ads of the time as well) noticed that the commercials were several things different than today’s:
>They are integrated into the show in a sense; they come sometimes in the middle, (or twice at certain points in) and seem to be with the same announcer as the radio network.
>There seem to be much less of them in number.
> They seem unoffensive to me, true it is age that makes them unoffensive in a sense, but I think even more so, the content seems quite harmless or even watchable and does not inspire that “OMG where is the remote! [Hits mute!]” feeling when you see them today, with bizarre and disgusting “patient push” ads from BigPharm trying to convince the public to ask their doctor for ProxTesGlazoin for their LactoseReflexMuscleSpasms, complete with stupid simplistic outlines of the human body. Or the late-night ones with get rich-quick-schemes with old people (probably paid $20 to lie) sipping non-alcoholic coconut water by the poolside saying you could be like that too.
> They make more rhetorical (word based) claims for the products compared to todays. The 50’s TV ones seem more wordy than today’s, as if today’s is dumbed down (or perhaps today’s are smarted up with better images?).
So why have commercials become so abhorrent to me? I never watch them and thank the housewives and general low-standards-in-what-they-watch who do to enable us to have free network TV programming. Why don’t they have old timey commercials where one of the characters from the show gets in front of the camera and starts saying how much more goodness Arm and Hammer baking soda & powder has these days. I mean they do product placement anyway right? What is the big deal?
Imagine if JD from Scrubs went out at intermission and hocked that recent ADD drug, saying if he kept taking it, they would have to cancel the show because there would be no flash-scenes left since JD himself would have superb concentration. (Remember that ADD commercial where you, the viewer is at a business meeting and they cut away from it to spam you about the drug, and then at the end the boss turns to you and says, ‘well what do YOU think about it’ and everyone at the meeting also looks at you, and you are supposed to be scared to dearth about losing concentration, hence you will ask your local sawbones for a prescription? What drug was that anyway?
Back then, a show might have a single sponsor, rather than multiple sponsors that buy ad time. And shows were often live, so the sponsor’s product could be hawked without leaving the show. It makes sense to integrate the spots into the show. People watched the shows because they liked them. Having the host come on in his folksy way and telling everyone how great the product is and how wonderful the sponsor is to bring the audience their entertainment seems like it would be more effective than many commercials today.
The underrated Jimmy Kimmel Live does a “live” commercial for their main sponsor at the beginning of each show that is reminiscent of these types of advertisements. Unfortunately, the network usually follows it up with a regular blaring commercial for the same product, which sort of dilutes the novelty of it.
30 Rock has done this in a couple ways as well. They’ve had some purposely blatant product placement, touting Verizon phones (after which Liz Lemon turns to the camera and says “can we have our money now?”). They’ve also done American Express ads that play like scenes from 30 Rock, but aren’t part of the actual show. I remember them holding my attention when they first aired, because they blurred the line between funny bonus scene and commercial.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of this now that most people skip past commercials with their DVRs.
Heroes did this, and Chuck still does. Plus the aforementioned 30 Rock. I think the conclusion there is simple: NBC is desperate and hurting. Over on basic cable, Bank of America is shoehorning itself into the series The Story Of Us by making its commercials look like part of the show.
I find these tactics more distasteful, not less, though I agree with your original point that the old-time live spots don’t offend me. I’m guess I’m just used to the talent doing live commercials from listening to Howard Stern for decades.
No, I don’t remember that one at all. It sounds awesome, though.
It’s generally accepted that the most annoying commercials in history were from 50s adman Rosser Reeves, especially the hard-sell Anacin commercials.
This is the direct ancestor of “apply directly to the forehead.”
So-called magazine-style individual ads at interruptions to the program started in the mid-50s as programs got too expensive for single sponsors and took over almost entirely after the sponsor-caused quiz show scandals in the late 50s. Ads had to stand out from others to make an impression.
It’s not really that earlier ad techniques in television or in radio were all that much better. You can find all the examples you want of horrible, forced, awkward transitions from a program into an ad, awful jingles, stupid catch-phrases, ridiculous claims, and anything else you might dislike.
Nor are individual commercials today uniformly bad. We all have favorite commercials and there are whole threads about them.
Advertisements are there to sell you. On a product, on a brand, on a company, on a style, on an idea. Whether they work and whether you happen to like them don’t have to coincide. The Anacin commercials worked wonderfully even while they were being hated, mocked, and denounced. There is no right way to do an ad, no one way to make it enjoyable, no agreement on what is good. I don’t know of any way to say that advertising has gotten better or worse over the decades. I’m positive that watching a tiny few out-of-context commercials from a past era is not a fair test, though.
In some ways they were sort of more offensive, though, back in the day, weren’t they? I’ve seen a lot of misogynist ones, or ones that were patronizing to women, that would never go over now. (Well, now, it would probably be along the lines of, “So easy a MAN can do it!”)
The switch to “magazine style” ads was due to money (oddly enough ;)). In early TV, the sponsor produced the show and put it on the air (radio was this way – even more so, since many top radio shows had the sponsor’s name in the title). Even if they didn’t produce, the sponsor paid for the show (sometimes there were two “alternate sponsors” – the main sponsor for the week got to commercial breaks; the alternate sponsor got one. Then they’d swap for the next week).
There were issues with sponsor interference – asking for things to change because they didn’t like the subject – but the networks realized they could make more money by putting all the commercial slots up for grabs. If the show was a big hit, they could charge much more than under the other system (where the sponsor paid a set amount for a set length of time – a season, possibly more).
Thus, under the old system, the sponsors might agree to pay $30,000 per show for the first season. If the show gets bad ratings, they might cancel the show or drop their sponsorship, or they may decide that, though the ratings are low, they are still a good audience for the money.
In the magazine format, the network would charge, say, $10,000 for an ad spot. But if the show is a big hit after a month, they’d charge $20,000. More money for them. If the show got bad ratings, they’d cancel it for a show where they could charge $20,000.
This meant huge profits for NBC and CBS (ABC didn’t start making money until the magazine format was established), so the switched their shows over to magazine by around 1960.
Well, even without product placement (which is a different annoying thing) there was that whole “tattooed lady and her daughter using SPRINTtm phones” ad campaign. It wasn’t actually in the episodes, it was in commercials that came on during the episodes.
On Chuck, similarly, there was Capt. Awesome and Ellie going on a road trip with Morgan in CAR I CAN’T REMEMBER BRAND OFtm.
The Rusty Venture Show… Brought to you by SMOKING!
There are still a few radio stations that do ads where the regular announcers are suddenly and randomly talking about Product X and its many features and benefits, but sometimes- if you’re paying attention- you can sometimes pick up that one (or sometimes both) of them aren’t particularly happy about it, depending on the product. Otherwise you get the standard “THE STUPID MORNING SHOW WITH THREE UNFUNNNY ‘PERSONALITIES’ AND NO MUSIC Is brought to you by BRAND X; INSERT SLOGAN HERE!”
Some TV shows are still “Sponsored” to an extent though, at least here. Not in the 1950/1960s “Dapper Dan Hair Cream Smile Time Variety Hour” type way, but more as a “Premium” ad placement in the slots for (some) prime-time shows- you get “This show brought to you by [Product/Brand]” at the start of the show and in the “best” ad slot during the ad breaks (usually the one just before the show goes back, IIRC).
From the 1920s through the mid-1950s, the standard model in broadcasting was that the sponsor would buy a block of time and produce the program for it. So the talent was working for the sponsor, not the network.
The commercials, therefore, didn’t need to attract your attention, the sponsor had already done that by getting you to watch/listen to the show. If anything, the ads were designed to not LOSE your attention, by integrating them as closely to the show as possible.
Of course it was also carried to ridiculous extremes. If you watch old episodes of Ozzie and Harriet, you can tell which season they were from by watching for the sponsor clues. The season they were sponsored by Hotpoint appliances had a lot more scenes set in the kitchen; the season sponsored by Kodak had the family taking pictures of each other; the season sponsored by Coke had them guzzling enough soft drinks to rot their teeth.
They haven’t gotten around to it here in Australia but I’d very much like to see it, since I’m sick of perfectly good shows being interrupted by ads all the time.
Commercial-free shows are rare on regular commercial broadcast networks in the U.S. The sorts of announcements that kunilou is talking about are only on public TV. They have an announcement at the beginning of the program about who is paying for the broadcast.
I used to love the way “Burns and Allen” would work the commericals into their radio show
George Burns) I know Bill, but I’m busy now
Bill Goodwin) It’ll just take a minute George
George) Can’t talk, run along Bill
Bill) You’ll never run a long bill if you drink Maxwell House Coffee, it costs just pennies more per cup that other leading brands…
Jack Benny) I’ll be on your show Geroge
George) I’d even pay you
Jack Benny) That’s not necessary I’d do it for Amident Toothpaste
Geroge) Great, how many tubes do you want
Jack) Tubes? I meant the whole company
Tootsie Sagwell) I just had a beauty treatment
Bill Goodwin) You don’t need to do that, Swan Soap is all you’ll ever need. It’s great for keeping you looking young and attractive
Tootsie) I know I always wash my hands with it. See how beautiful they are
Bill) You should use some on your face.
Ah, I see. Our public TV (The generally excellent ABC) is funded by the Government and is blissfully ad-free. Shame about SBS, though. (The other public TV channel noted for [del]softcore porn[/del] Subtitled Arthouse Films, Soccer, and News In Languages You’ve Never Heard Of). It used to be ad-free but now has ads, unfortunately.
It does happen sometimes on high profile shows. I can’t remember exactly, but I think Heroes did it once or twice, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to have the series finale of Lost covered that way.
More often, you get it on pop radio stations. “This three hour block is brought to you without interruptions by Brawndo! It’s got what plants crave!”
I just saw a 50s commercial for Listerine in which a woman was rejected for having bad breath. The print ads I’ve seen for Listerine were just as bad, implying that women were doomed to never marry unless they used Listerine, because women are stinky and disgusting by nature. :rolleyes: So, yeah, just as offensive, but in a different way.
I saw that one, too. I think they posted it on Jezebel a few days ago? I’ve seen others, too, like in Susan Douglas’s book Where the Girls Are. So…yeah, I guess it’s all in how you view it.
