Balihoo Creative Blog

Television Commercials have always been my passion. Never have I had any real interest in long form television. The lure of conveying an effective 30 second message in an entertaining micro movie has always held sway over me.

Growing up in the late 70’s I was captivated by commercials. While normal children would spend their Sunday evenings recording songs from the radio, I had my Ferguson Audio Tape Recorder placed strategically in front of the single speaker of the television, recording commercials for future playback and inspiration for my own ‘creations’.

In beautiful mono I would capture the sexually persuasive Martini Commercials promoting beautiful women and a jet set lifestyle. Cigarette commercials giving the illusion of the sophisticated, respected ‘man about town’ and of course, the ground breaking Atari Entertainment System delivering cutting edge, wholesome family entertainment.

As far as I remember it, that’s just how it was in the late 70’s, a ‘commercial world’ that was painted in glorious Technicolor, so far removed from the world of reality.

Since and before then, commercials have gone through many stages generally pertaining to our current economic situation. Today, commercials are based in reality, designed to relate to us on ‘Our’ level, talking to us like a man on the street. Messages of ‘We Understand’ fly through the air like jet-lagged relatives on thanksgiving.

But how did it start? The story of Television Commercials has developed more quickly than any traditional medium first arriving with us in the late 1940’s. Lets face it; we have all seen the black and white footage of the suited smoking man reading verbatim, the merits of Lipton Tea. From this moment of birth, commercials and video advertising have exploded into the monster we know today.

In the early 1950’s, television commercials began to gain real traction, big advertising agencies that predominantly dealt with radio programs and well as the radio commercials contained within them, were now catapulted into the realm of visual communication. As there was no experience in this new medium, agencies continued at this point to produce radio programs but simply added visuals.

For example Lucky Strike had a radio show called ‘Your Lucky Strike Hit Parade’. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rllf9b1J02k This was a show that successfully made the transition from radio to television. However due to converting mediums, the production costs for the show skyrocketed. What was once a jingle on the radio became a choreographed dance that required talent and a budget to pay the talent.

Lucky Strike decided to rename the show to ‘Your Hit Parade’ and sell advertising to other businesses recouping some of the production expense. This move was to become a very poignant landmark in the development of commercial television. From this lead, many shows followed suit and the commercial break was essentially born.

Another trend that occurred at this time was the way the commercials were made. Commercials were all shot live and advertisers utilized their own actors, dancers and sound stage on set. The only time any pre-shot footage would be used, was for product close-ups etc. This meant that every commercial that was broadcast would have a vast re-occurring cost on a weekly basis.

Gradually the benefits of using film to be able to control timing, exactness and cost in a volatile live broadcast environment became apparent. Many of the early film commercials utilized cartoon style animations using the radio jingle as timing. From this jingle, agencies would produce a storyboard and submit it to a production company specializing in animation to build it out. Shooting footage was still not really the norm at this point.

It wasn’t until later that live production companies who had historically produced training and sales films for giants like Ford, GEC etc jumped on the wagon. With the responsibility change in the television advertising process, i.e. moving from the TV Station to the advertising agency, filmmakers now changed direction and thus the childhood of commercial production was born.

Well we are so far down the line since the inception of this medium that anyone back in the day would never have been able to comprehend where video advertising was going. Consequently, I am more than excited to be a part of the future of television commercials and in fact, all visual communication here at Balihoo. These are very exciting times.

Since the early nineties, the convergence of the Computer and Television was pushed as the future, yet it is only very recently this is actually becoming a reality. While Internet video is very much a real entity, we are still in our childhood and just starting to see the possibilities available to us, and things are moving quickly.

So as I take a trip down memory lane and remember how the commercials of the 70’s shaped my life, I can only hope to return the favor and produce, what will ultimately become the politically incorrect commercials of the future.

The only difference this time is you’ll receive them, not just through a phosphorous hue spilling into your living room, but in a multitude of mobile digital ways….trust me your children will thank me…

You’re welcome.