|
Commercials - The first TV
commercial advertisement was sponsored by the Bulova Watch company on July
1, 1941. Bulova paid $9.00 for a 10-second Bulova Watch Time announcement
superimposed on the test pattern at 2:29:50 P.M..
At 2:30 P.M. the telecast
began from Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn with announcer Ray Forrest doing the
play-by-play of a baseball game between the Dodgers & the Phillies.
There
were 4000 sets for the first broadcast. The program was locally broadcast by WNBT in New York.
In 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised
on national television.
The first television Network sponsor of a sporting
event was Gillette Razor Company with the telecast of the Joe Louis vs. Bill Conn heavyweight Boxing match on June 19, 1946. Their commercial spotlighted
a line drawing of a parrot called Sharpie and their commercial slogans "Look
sharp, feel sharp, be sharp!" and "How'r 'ya fixed for blades?"
Kraft Foods
was the first company to sponsor an hour long drama as they lent commercial
support for their dramatic anthology KRAFT TELEVISION THEATRE/NBC/1947-58.
Their first drama was "Double Door" and starred John Baragrey.
The first
animated commercial to use identifiable characters was an Ajax cleanser
commercial which debuted in 1948 and featured the antics of three energetic
pixies (The Ajax Pixies) who cavorted about the kitchen and bathroom
cleaning dirty surfaces.
The first television commercial filmed in color on
the CBS network starred actress Adelaide Hawley portraying "Betty Crocker"
America's fictional housewife. The 1951 broadcast featured a mystery
fruitcake.
The first color commercial televised in a local show was
commissioned in March by Castro Decorators, New York, in a contract with WNBT. It was first telecast on Aug. 6. 1953.
In response from pressure from
a number of concerned citizen groups, the NAB in 1958 outlawed the "Men in
White" commercials which depicted actors who simulated doctors recommending
medicines to the American public. To get around this ruling, one
advertisement later featured a commercial that began "I'm not a doctor, but
I play one on TV."
On January 2, 1971, a federally imposed ban on television
cigarette advertisements went into effect.
In 1971, The Federal Trade
Commission ruled that such euphemisms as "Leading Brand," "Brand X" and "The
Leading Foreign Import" were only confusing to the public and must be
discontinued. This was the birth of the television commercials that directly
attacked another product by their "brand name" such as the phrase "More
people prefer Pepsi to Coke."
In a unique collaboration of commercial
marketing, the Alka-Selzer Company and H & R Block Company joined forces in
the spring of 1987 to calm the queasy feeling that Americans get at tax
preparation time. The commercial pitch was "Take Alka-Seltzer and call H & R
Block." This was the first time two major companies jointly pushed their
products. By sharing costs, the joint venture would allow the companies to
reach a larger group of consumers in both supermarket and tax offices.
In May of 1988, rock star Michael Jackson starred in five
Pepsi Cola commercials aired in the Soviet Union to an audience of
150,000,000 people. The commercials were seen during a week-long series
called "Posner In America" hosted by Vladimir Posner, Russian
journalist/broadcaster. This was the first time in history that an American
commercial was shown behind the Iron Curtain.
External Links
Back to Top |
