Television Commercials (1950s-1960s)

For this week’s homework assignment, I watched the film titled “Television Commercials (1950s-1960s). I originally thought that this film would portray the progression of commercials over the span of two decades; however, it solely displayed commercials that aired throughout these years. Although the film was something completely different than I thought I would be watching, I still gained a lot from watching the transformation of TV advertising through the 50s and 60s and was able to draw similarities and differences from what TV advertising is to our society today.

            In this film, TV commercials were used as a communication technology and used the method of visuals and audio to attract the audience. TV was the first communication to use both video and audio at the same time to persuade target markets. Starting with the print revolution that we talked about last week, advertising began to blow up with new methods being discovered as technology expanded and broke down location barriers. Using the television allowed advertisers to mass broadcast their product, and specifically air their advertisements on certain TV channels because advertising firms knew which type of people were watching at what time.

            In the majority of these commercials, there was very little action going on. Usually, there would be actors/actresses performing simple acts while a narrator spoke over the video while describing the product. On the contrary, today, there are way less commercials with narrators and more commercials with a full story line and room for the audiences’ imagination about the product.  

            Another comparing and contrasting theme I noticed was that most of the commercials shown were directed towards men. If the commercial was directed towards women, it was about beauty products or home improvements. This shows the transformation that this communication technology has gone through because in today’s advertising world, men and women are both targeted at a high volume. I believe the 50s and 60s advertisements were this way because of the gender gap during this era, which displayed gender inequality and women pushing for more of a voice in society.

            I believe that from this film, society learned about the societal transformation that was caused by an increased communication technology. With the implementation of advertising on TV, advertisers were able to breakdown gender, race, and age barriers and allowed there to be a market for every type of person. By breaking down these barriers at a superficial level (advertising while entertaining), the barrier was slowly being breaking down in society by way of TV easing its message onto the public. As technology continues to improve communication, more barriers are able to be broken and new communities will be formed.

https://archive.org/details/Televisi1960