Answer to this weeks question!

Bill stated, "With multiple televisions in every home in America, and hundreds of channels to watch, television advertisement has become the main form of advertisement. While people are constantly bombarded with multiple images of different products every 10 to 15 minutes during their television program, new inventions are allowing us to circumvent the need to view commercials. Things such as TIVO or DVR are making it so we can fast forward through commercials, a high school German teacher of mine told me that in Germany the commercials are all condensed into a 5-10 minute block in the middle of the show, like an intermission almost. I am not sure if that is still the way it is done there, but regardless with the way television advertisement is going are we going to see new forms of it? An increase in traditional billboards and public/outdoors advertisement? Will product placement become even more prevalent in shows? One thought I had was a fixed image on the screen for a set period of time, regardless of fast forwarding it will always be there, but it would be a nuisance to those without TIVO so thankfully I think it will be awhile before that occurs!"

Bill has a very good point about how everyone that has TIVO or DVR tends to fast forward through comercials and that we end up seeing less and less advertisements. I know that I'm one of those people that do that and I've noticed in television shows they have begun using product placement through out their shows. For example, with 90210, almost every scene that a character was eating or drinking something, there was can of Dr Pepper on the table or there was an advertisement of it in the background that you could still clearly see. Other shows have also incoporated contests or fundraisers of a product in their show like One Tree Hill having their Sunkist music contest or something of that sort. I feel that we will slowly start seeing more advertisements in shows because people are fast fowarding through comercials and not seeing these advertisements.

I can't think of other forms that televisions will have to show more advertisements and I think that it would be annoying to see a fixed image on the bottom of the screen. I feel that with our economy being so bad, that there might not be an increase of billboards with advertisements or magazine with ads. However, we might see more ads on the internet because I feel that it is easier and cheaper to post something on there. One suggestion that advertisers can do is, post their ads up on the tv guide thing that people have with on demand or whatever they have. At least it will be there and the consumer might happen to catch a glimpse of it.