Advertising through the ages

Advertising has evolved a lot through the ages, they have become more psychologically based and targeted more at a specific audience.
The very first advertisement ever was in the US on July 1st 1941. It was a 10 second ad for the Watchmaker Bulova He paid $9 for a placement on New York station WNBT before a baseball game. The first advertisement in Britain was on ITV on the 21st Sept 1955 for Gibbs SR toothpaste and the first advertisement that was in colour was for Birds eye frozen peas. The first interactive commercial was for Chicken tonight and let the viewer press the red button in order to get the money off voucher.
The Gibbs SR advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSSpugVNQD4

Companies place their products in programmes where the actor or actress will wear or consume the particular product. Perhaps an actor might wear a specific make of watch or drink coca cola during the show to promote that product for the company. This is another effective way of advertising their product.
Companies take a product now and market it as much as they can by strategically placing it exactly where the manufacturer knows it will be seen. For example in the middle of a programme like Top gear they would place an advert for shaving foam and razor blades or cars. This is because they know that the main audience watching the show will be male. Therefore they are hitting their specific audience that would want this product directly. Here is an example of such an advert that advertises Lynx deodorant for men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCZ-6y2UEfM

Another example of this would be an advertisement for a new or existing toy. This would be placed in the middle of a children’s programme after school, this would captivate the children and make them crave the product. Such an advert would not be put on later in the evening as the specific audience would most likely be asleep. For example, adverts during Art attack would have children’s art sets and other toys. The programme the children have been watching would enhance their need for the product. This means they subconsciously want all the products and would pester their parents for it. Thus making the placement of the advert successful. Here is a typical example of a recent advert that might attract young girls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ylbW0OBKJw

ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority and they are an independent regulator of advertising across all Media. They work to ensure that all adverts are legal, decent, honest and truthful. They have a complaint section so viewers can contact them if they are not happy with an advert or they think it is on at the wrong time i.e. something sexual on before the watershed. This body was set up in 1961 to make sure the product is not claiming to do something that is impossible or misleading.
BARB is the Broadcasters Audience Research Board where they show the viewing figures for television, PC’s, laptops and all tablet devices. Any one can go on to their website and see the figures for any programme or channel. So when you are deciding to place an advertisement, you will see where to place it and at what time. Thus enabling you to decide who the relevant audience for your product is.
There is speculation that television adverts are being threatened by digital recorders as viewers can fast forward through the adverts miss them altogether. According to research in the UK, this is not necessarily so. 22% of households had a DTR at the end of 2008. Data from these homes showed that 17% more television was being watched. 82% of the viewing is the usual linear TV without any fast-forwarding. The other 18% of people do watch the programmes at different times after recording them but they still watch 30% of the adverts at a normal speed. This means that overall, people owning a DTR watch 2% more adverts.
The amount of people watching television on the Internet has gone up dramatically. They can watch catch up T.V on sites such as 4OD where you can watch programmes they missed on E4. This has not even stopped advertising. A lot of online television will force you to watch one or maybe two adverts before you can watch the actual programme. The limited amount of adverts online means that getting those spots is extremely expensive.
There are prime time slots for adverts and these are highly expensive. ITV starts from a surprising £1500 for a 10 sec slot. This is an astonishing price compared to the $9 dollars for the first advert. An example of charges is the channel ITV , they charge on a monthly basis. January, February, march and august being the more affordable months and the most heavily demanded months are pre Easter pre Summer and pre Christmas. They sell their space in multiples of 10 seconds with the most popular time length being 30 seconds. Anything over 30 seconds is pro –rata.