Methods of Commercial Presentation Employed by National Television Advertisers

This study represents an analysis of the methods of message presentation (termed “structure”) that are utilized in national television commercials. The motivation for performing the study is captured in the following three points: 1) the ultimate objectives of advertising research are to understand receivers' information processing and to explain and predict the effects advertising messages have on consumers; 2) in order to achieve these objectives, it is initially necessary to delineate the specific message stimuli responsible for advertising effects; 3) past advertising research has been primarily concerned with measuring the effects of general message properties (such as fear appeals, message repetition, etc.), but virtually no recent efforts have been devoted toward achieving an enhanced understanding of the message stimuli employed in advertising messages. This paper offers a typology of the multiple methods of commercial structure. The typology was tested on a large sample of script-form commercials. The primary contribution of this effort is the availability of an operational typology; a series of research projects are suggested which could take avail of it.