The Best Thing on TV: 1960s US Television Commercials

Films that Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising

Cynthia B. Meyers
Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, Bo Florin & Nico de Klerk & Patrick Vonderau, BFI’s Cultural Histories of Cinema Series, eds. Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson, chapter 11, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 173-193

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APA Click to copy
Meyers, C. B. (2016). The Best Thing on TV: 1960s US Television Commercials. In B. F. & Nico de Klerk & Patrick Vonderau (Ed.), BFI’s Cultural Histories of Cinema Series, eds. Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson (pp. 173–193). Palgrave.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Meyers, Cynthia B. “The Best Thing on TV: 1960s US Television Commercials.” In BFI’s Cultural Histories of Cinema Series, Eds. Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson, edited by Bo Florin & Nico de Klerk & Patrick Vonderau, 173–193. Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising. Palgrave, 2016.

MLA Click to copy
Meyers, Cynthia B. “The Best Thing on TV: 1960s US Television Commercials.” BFI’s Cultural Histories of Cinema Series, Eds. Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson, edited by Bo Florin & Nico de Klerk & Patrick Vonderau, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 173–93.

BibTeX Click to copy

@inbook{cynthia2016a,
  title = {The Best Thing on TV: 1960s US Television Commercials},
  year = {2016},
  chapter = {11},
  pages = {173-193},
  publisher = {Palgrave},
  series = {Films That Sell:  Moving Pictures and Advertising},
  author = {Meyers, Cynthia B.},
  editor = {de Klerk & Patrick Vonderau, Bo Florin & Nico},
  booktitle = {BFI’s  Cultural Histories of Cinema Series, eds. Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson}
}

The 1960s was a transitional decade for American commercial television and the advertising industry that sustained it. The television industry completed its shift from the radio-era business model of single sponsorship, in which advertisers financed and controlled programming, to the network-era model, in which advertisers purchased interstitial minutes for commercials and ceded programme control almost entirely to networks. At the beginning of the 1960s, advertising executives were worrying about a crisis of creativity and consumer cynicism. By the end of the 1960s, the advertising industry's 'Creative Revolution' had permanently replaced the rational and product- centred hard sell with the emotional and user-centred soft sell. In late 1960s 'hip' advertising, 'the idea became mightier than the marketing' .