ABSTRACT
The American television commercial is a complex creative effort because at least six different persons all contribute their own ideas to the interpretation of a writer’s one basic idea. The commercial is an advertising message, of course, but perhaps its objective is made more lucid by defining it as an advertising message that should contain information of personal interest to the viewer in a highly memorable form. American advertisers also buy completed programs, in which they use the 20- and the 60-second commercial as well as other lengths. Finally, advertisers in the United States may buy 20- or 60-second commercials in “participating” programs. Feature pictures often fail because they require the creative contribution of so many people—and lack the dominant controlling figure who senses the creative spark and the objective of the story and carefully controls all effort to that one end.
