“What’s a TV commercial, daddy?” some kids today may be asking.
A survey of parents by Exstreamist finds 82% of children raised in houses that only have Netflix or a similar on-demand streaming service don’t know what TV commercials are. For anyone over the age of 20, that seems mind boggling. It’s a brave new world we live in.
Television commercials have been a staple of our lives for as long as we can remember, from classic old Maxwell House coffee percolators to the Marlboro Man and teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony. It’s hard to conceive of a world where people don’t even know what TV commercials are, yet even in households that have standard TV programming kids say they don’t know what they are. Media analyst Dan Gainor with Media Research Center finds that hard to believe and doesn’t think you have to fear that they’ll go away soon. “Even if you’re going to facebook a lot of the videos you’re seeing there have pre-roll ads or commercials embedded in them. I think commercials are here to stay,” he tells KTRH News. But he says it’s not like the golden age of television advertising. “I think good commercials are still effective, but are they as effective as they used to be? Not a prayer.”
Joe Cesaratto sells advertising for iHeartMedia and says radio advertising remains effective. “The key advantage that radio has is that we reach the consumer in their car. The on-air personality can recommend services and products. They’re sort of like the Yelp of radio.” You hear Matt Patrick, Shara Fryer and Michael Berry endorse products they use and support, and Cesaratto says the response is positive for both clients and listeners. “When the on-air person talks about the product or service, the consumer will walk into the store and say ‘such-and-such’ recommended I come here,” he says.