CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media

Module 6: Studying Advertising

Advertising Drives Content

Another important aspect of advertising is that is drives the content of commercial television, radio, and magazines. The content itself is simply filler designed to sell the ads, which, in commercial media texts, are simply made to make money. The programming content is often designed simply to attract certain types of viewers who will also be exposed to ads geared for a certain demographic. Much of the content of prime time television is geared for the 18 – 49 year old market, who presumably are engaged in purchasing of the products advertised.

However, Gloria Goodale and M.S. Mason, in their articles in The Christian Science Monitor, “Youth powers TV, but is that smart business?” challenge this orientation of marketing for the 18-49 year old market:

A growing number of experts are suggesting that the "get 'em while they're young" premise is an outdated assumption about both the young and the old.

First, women, not men, control 85 percent of all personal and household spending, according to recent research. And the over-49 crowd in general has more disposable income than younger people.

“Really, older people look around for things to spend it on,” says Susan Easton, an Indiana University professor who has written extensively in the field of demographics. Next, “brand loyalty” is not something that lasts a lifetime.

Indeed, women ages 40 to 50 are more likely to abandon a favorite brand than are younger women, according to a 1996 study by Information Resources. In 1997, baby boomers, then moving into their 50s, tried just as many brands of soda, beer, and candy bars as did 18- to 34-year-olds, discovered A.C. Nielsen, which tracks TV viewers’ purchases just as its Nielsen cousin tracks viewing habits.

Ms. Easton goes so far as to characterize the whole rationale for catering to young adults as a “myth.” “It’s an idea inside the heads of advertisers,” she says.

Much of this points to the fact that advertisers and content producers create demographic categories that are largely fictional (Ang, 2000). The 18-to 34-year-old male is a fictional creation, yet that concept shapes much of not only advertising (for beer, cars, sports promotion, computer games, etc.), but also the content that will attract these advertisers: sports, wrestling, MTV, etc.

And, the style of advertising itself shapes the style of content Critics such as Mark Miller (1990) argue that Hollywood films have actually become more like commercials in their use of high-speed editing and flashy shots, given the assumption that audiences will not pay attention to slow-moving, traditional cinematography. And, magazine and newspaper contain more short, “catchy” articles that are often difficult to distinguish from the ads.