Making an advertisement for television often costs more than a movie. For example, a two – hour movie costs ＄6 million to make. A TV commercial can cost more than ＄6 000 a second. And that does not include cost of paying for air time. Which is more valuable, the program or the ad? In terms of money – and making money is what television is all about – the commercial is by far the more important.
Research, market testing, talent, time and money —— all come together to make us want to buy a product.
No matter how bad we think a commercial is, it works. The sales of Charm went up once the ads began. TV commercials actually buy their way into our head. We, in turn, buy the product.
And the ads work because so much time and attention are given to them. Here are some rules of commercial ad making. If you want to get the low middle – class buyer, make sure the announcer has a though, manly voice. Put some people in the ad who work with their hands. If you want to sell to upper – class audience, make sure that the house, the furniture, and the hair style are the types that the group identifies with. If you want the buyer feel superior to the character selling the product, then make that person so stupid or silly that everyone will feel great about himself or herself.
We laugh at commercials. We don’t think we pay that much attention to them. But evidence shows we are kidding ourselves. The making of a commercial that costs so much money is not kid stuff. It’s big, big business. And it’s telling us what to think , what we need, and what to buy. To put simply, the TV commercial is a form of brainwashing.
小题1:TV commercials are more important than other programs to television because .
A．they bring in great profits
B．they require a lot of money to make
C．they are not difficult to produce
D．they attract more viewers than other programs小题2:The purpose of all the efforts made in turning out TV commercials is .`
A．to persuade people to buy the product
B．to show how valuable the product is
C．to test the market value of the product
D．to make them as interesting as TV movies小题3:From the rules set for making commercial ads, we can see that .
A．the lower – middle – class buyer likes to work with his hand
B．the more stupid the characters, the more buyers of the product
C．ad designers attract different people with different skills
D．an upper – class buyer is only interested in houses and furniture小题4:It is believed by the writer that .
A．few people like to watch TV commercials
B．TV commercials are a good guide to buyers
C．TV commercials often make people laugh
D．people do not think highly of TV commercials小题5:What does the author actually mean in the last paragraph?
A．He asks TV viewers never to laugh at the TV commercial ads.
B．Commercials are used to show the true value of a product to be sold.
C．TV commercials cost much and they do influence us in one way or another.
D．Brainwashing must be introduced to sell something on TV.
