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Originally Posted by CaraAmericana
Just like I don’t understand why you will only see commercials with all black actors during a time frame when only black dominanted tv shows are aired.
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Thats easy to answer, I work in cable advertising, so perhaps I can shed a little light on why that happens.
Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Whatever... It's basically considered a, "demographic." When an client comes to us looking to advertise their product, they tell us what their target demographic is for that product. Lets say the product is a car, and they are targeting "Adults 25-54." Now cars appeal to all people, regardless of race right? But, as an advertiser, you want to be able to identify with your target audience in order to have your advertising be as effective as possible. Cable, is broken out into zones. This allows advertisers to target the different demographics more specifically, because groups of similar people typically tend to live together.
So in City A, there are 3 neighborhoods. Neighborhood 1, is mostly white, neighborhood 2 is mostly black, and neighborhood 3 is mixed equally 50/50. The car dealership in this city comes to us and says they want to advertise their dealership locally. We would then, knowing that the city is divided like it is, build a schedule for that advertiser based on reaching the audience that is most likeley to buy their car.
So in Neighborhood 1, we would air commercials on channels that the white audience in that neighborhood watches. Which in most cases, is probably not the channel, and time frame which is black dominated, since in that zone, those channels and times probably rate rather low. But at the same time, we would also be airing commercials in DIFFERENT channels in neighborhood 2, which appeal to the black majority. And in nieghborhood 3, they would probably air on networks that appeal to both demographics equally.
In addition, that company might come to us with multiple commercials already produced. One commercial might feature an all white cast, to be used for the mostly white neighborhood, and a second features an all black cast to appeal to the mostly black neighborhood, and a third commecial which has a racially mixed cast to air in the racially diverse neighborhood. This way, the client knows that when the commercial with the All Black Family buying a new car airs, it's going to air in the black neighborhood, on channels, "Black Adults Ages 25-54" typically watch.
Thats a super simple example, but everything you see on TV, is put there for a reason. Two members could be watching the same exact show on TV, but not see the same commercials. This is for cable advertising.
Network television is different, but the same general principles apply.
