Question

Watch one hour of prime-time television and answer the following questions. You will need a watch or clock with a second hand and undivided attention during commercials.

• In a one-hour (full 60-minute) period, how many minutes were devoted to advertising? How were they distributed throughout the hour?
• How many commercials were 60 seconds long? 45 seconds? 30 seconds? 15 seconds?
• Were there any other commercial lengths?
• Was the same product advertised more than once during the hour? Were the commercials identical?
• In a “pod” of several commercials, do you feel that one position is strongest? Is being first the best? Is being last the best? Why?
• How well do the commercials fit with the program? Do the programs and the products have similar target markets?
• Which executional style of advertising was used the most?
• If you are watching via streaming service -how is it changing advertising? Discuss the advertising patterns.

Answer 1

1. In the one hour prime time television show The Walking Dead 7.73 minutes were designated to commercials and advertising. The commercials were broken down into 6 sets of commercials with the last set only to have one commercial in it. The first set was 116.56 seconds and there were four commercials. The second set thru the fifth set had three commercials each and the times were 87.35(2nd set), 72.47(3rd set), 85.25(4th set), 72.69(5th set), 29.28(6th set).

2. None of the commercials that I watched were 60 seconds or 45 seconds long. There were 11 commercials that were around 30 seconds in length and 2 that were around 15 seconds long.

3. Yes, none of the commercials were exactly 30 seconds or 15 seconds but the numbers I got were close they are as follows: 30.10, 29.90, 27.72, 28.84, 29.75, 27.96, 14.76, 27.71, 27.96, 29.58, 14.88, 28.53, 29.28, and 29.28.

4. Yes, the same product was advertised more than once in the hour. Most of the companies that repeated commercials during this program were the same commercials every time it played.

5. I do feel that one position is the strongest because if you are a fan of the show you are going to wait until the commercial comes on to go to the bathroom or to the kitchen to get a snack so more than likely you are not going to catch the first one or two commercials. So really it is a gamble whether you feel you are reaching the targeted amount of people for the money you spent to advertise.

6. Looking at the different commercials that come on between the show I believe they do have a good fit with their target market. The commercials that they aired during the Walking Dead are Carmax(4), Expedia(1), Showtime Homeland show(2), Capital One Quicksilver card(1), Beyond the lights movie(3), Fanduel (2), Honda Zombie car (1), Slim Jim(2), and Geico(1). I think the target audience is men and women mostly men between the ages of 18-30. With the used car commercials and credit card commercial I think the marketing and placement of the commercials into that particular show is a smart move because this is one of the most popular shows on television right now.

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