What Is Television Advertising

Whenever something, be it a social message, an event, or the products or services of a brand, is advertised on the Television it is called television advertising. 

The advertisements containing movement and sound are broadcasted during intermissions in the tv programmes as commercials, while the text-based graphical ones are displayed alongside the tv program on the bottom or the side of the screen as overlays. 

TV commercials are the most prominent kind of television advertising and are supposed to be really good for target marketing while overlays are really useful for news channels.

In spite of great competition from OTT and other digital formats, television advertising is still a dominant mode of advertising. Television advertising is a fairly flexible option for advertisers. 

Based on their budget and preferences, advertisers  can either provide the tv channel an advertisement or have the channel create one for them. 

They can also choose between different times for the airing of the ad based on their target audience and budget. Television advertising avails quality customer engagement, a wide reach, high frequency, and a lasting impact to your advertisement

Types of TV Advertising

On the basis of strict form, there are four main types of TV advertising: 

1. Television Commercials (TVCs): These are the promotional telecasts that are aired during the commercial breaks in the tv programs and in between them.

 They are generally between 15-50 seconds long and are among the most common types of tv advertising.

2. Infomercial ads: These are lengthy advertisements that are mostly used for teleshopping late at night or very early in the mornings. 

They usually range between ten to thirty minutes in duration, though sometimes they can run for hours on end through the night. 

As they are broadcasted at times when the viewership is the lowest, they are one of the least costly types of tv advertising.    

3. Sponsorship mentions: These belong to the more subtle types of tv advertising. Whenever you see the name of a tv programme followed by stuff like ‘’brought to you by’’ or ‘’presented to you by’’, it is sponsorship  advertising.

The general practice is to say the name of the brand prefixed with some phrase that conveys sponsorship every time the name of the programme is announced on the tv channel. 

For instance, ‘’The Tonight Show, brought to you by Coca Cola’’. Often the tagline of the brand is also added to the mix and sometimes  the sponsorship- phrase itself is written to match the brand. 

For example, the Tonight Show, powered by Duracell batteries. This is a very ingenious type of tv advertising, because it allows you to use the very form of the advertisement itself for advertising.

4. Overlays: In all the aforementioned types of tv advertising, the ads are given airtime of their own and are shown separately from the programmes. 

However, there are certain types of tv advertising which involve showing the ad simultaneously with the tv programmes.

They are very costly as they have a high visibility and are very unlikely to go unseen by the viewers. 

The various types of tv advertising where the ad is displayed simultaneously with the tv programme fall under the category of overlays. These are graphical ads that are put up along the bottom of the screen or sometimes along the sides. 

• Scrolls: The type of overlays that are played as continuously scrolling from one end of the screen to the other are called scrolls. 

They are mostly found on news channels featuring Breaking news or news updates that the channel gets while a programme is already on. 

• Aston Bands: these are the banners displayed along the bottom of the screen. They take up about 5-10 percent of the screen and are often used to promote an upcoming program on the tv channel in addition to promoting bands.

• L Band: An L band ad is placed on the left side and bottom of the screen in an L shaped pattern.These ads are costlier than commercial break ads, because again, ignoring the Ad is difficult since it occupies a major portion of the screen. 

The ads are played along with the content/ TV program.

Types of TV Advertising Formats

Most tv channels can be found employing a combination of all these different types of advertising formats, though some formats are used more on certain kinds of tv channels.

For instance, news channels are the most prolific users of scroll ads. The type of tv advertising format that is used is also governed by the type of advertisement to be displayed, like Aston Bands are reserved for high budget ads.

Within commercials, there are various types of tv advertising formats based on the techniques of promotion. 

Within different types of tv advertising formats there are various  subcategories based on the advertising techniques used in the commercial.

Testimonial style commercials, performance proof commercials, testimonial style commercials, and comparison commercials are among the most popular ones.

Television Advertising Examples  

The internet is swarming with television advertising examples that can help you get an idea of just how much of a soft science the art of tv advertising actually is.

However, at the same time  one shouldn’t get too hung up on these tv advertising campaign examples and take them as the ideal. 

An advertiser should not let the tv advertising campaign examples they see on the TV educate them into conformity as there is no real standard format for these ads although it may seem like there is one. 

There are no rules,there are only conventions which, again, are only so reliable. There are many television advertising examples where advertisershave gone against the grain and have been highly successful in spite of it, and arguably even because of it. 

There are numerous television advertising examples  out there that demonstrate the power of thinking out of the box, however, as a prudent advertiser you should take care not to confuse creativity with complexity. 

It is always advisable to prioritize simplicity, and you shouldn’t be so creative in your ad that the message gets lost in the form. 

There are lots of  television advertising examples that bear testimony to the utility of experimenting in advertising. 

The hilariously inappropriate and over the top Axe perfume ads with women being physically drawn to the man bearing the magical scent , the self- mocking animated ads of the energy drink Red Bull, the Fogg perfume  ads with their ridiculously repetitive punch line, are only a few of the countless tv advertising campaign examples that have defied the norms with impunity. 

Viewers usually respond well to novelty and the fact that an ad exhibits something radically different and new is enough to garner viewer’s attention which is the primary objective of ads anyway. 

Here are some television advertising examples to help you get an idea of how freely you can let your creativity let loose while coming up with ideas for your own tv advertising campaign.

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