1. Watch an hour of commercial television, but don’t leave during the commercials. Any hour of commercial TV will do. Notice:
a) How many commercials were in each “pod” (group)? Did that change during the hour? Why or why not? Write about any patterns you noticed, that you thought were interesting.
b) How long was each commercial? Ads for other shows on that network are still ads, and even station identifications count, so notice how many different lengths of commercials you see. Five seconds, fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, etc.
c) State what show you were watching, and who you think the target audience is FOR THAT SHOW. Do you think the ads you watched fit that same target audience? Why or why not?
2. Choose any product’s or company’s campaign that you especially enjoyed. After the hour has ended, go online and see whether the images and messages you saw on TV are echoed online.
a) Go to that company’s website, and make those comparisons.
b) Where else online do you see ads for that company? Notice also how well the ad fits the target market of the website where you saw it (not the company’s own website, but the website you were looking at when you also saw the ad).
3. Add anything else that you thought was interesting about this little exercise.
Write your responses in memo format (rather than APA format). If you’re unfamiliar with memo format, this assignment is written in memo format (look at the first five lines, in bold). It really is that easy. Please limit your responses to one or two typed pages.