The Influences of Commercial Television & Demographic Research

The commercial television format and more sophisticated demographic research strategies fostered the growth of lifestyle advertising. Time took on a new meaning when commercial television was the medium. Programming of all kinds­ from news broadcasts to mini­series­was delivered in compact packages suitable for the sale of advertising time blocks. Ever­rising costs cut the advertising slot into increasingly narrower time frames. The original one­minute commercial was replaced by the thirty­second one, which was in turn reduced to a fifteen­second blip. Obviously, time constraints had their impact on the logic of advertising; when seconds were the measure, there was little time for reasoned argumentation, comparative analysis, or meaningful product information. Lifestyle advertising's seductive images could have greater impact within such crammed quarters. ⁴⁸

With Freudian fervor, "psychographics" revealed what was latent in earlier demographic research: consumers could be divided into market segments characterized by particular psychological makeups, and advertisers could use this knowledge to their profit. "The ultimate goal of this research approach is to develop a group's so­called psychographic portrait, consisting of generally applicable personal values, attitudes, and emotions." ⁴⁹ As Hal Himmelstein notes, "Psychographics moves beyond such often unreliable demographic information as income, age, sex, and place of residence, all of which are incomplete descriptive data rather than interpretive information." ⁵⁰ Aided by these more refined profiles, advertisers could better identify and exploit the wish­fantasies of potential consumers. Like demographic research prior to the 1960s, psychographics sold "segmented" people to producers, who in turn sold products to the segmented marketplace. Accordingly, pyschographics further marginalized the role of product facts in favor of lifestyle images.

Advertising today need not be one­dimensional. To a greater or lesser degree, it may tap into all of the historical marketing formats: information, image, personality, and lifestyle advertising. The choice or mix of advertising forms depends on the intended audience, the product or service type, the social context for use, and the advertising medium employed. ⁵¹ Consumers are likely to look for more product information when considering advertisements of certain items (e.g., homes) than others (e.g., cosmetics). ⁵² Obviously, advertising does not speak in the same tongue to all people at all times for all things. Still, the appeal to the nonrational pervades much of contemporary advertising. That appeal may manifest itself in different fashions, but generally it remains dominant. Like a milder form of "ice­nine" in Cat's Cradle, ⁵³ it permeates everything.