(Broadcast media note: Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with a dedicated fiber optic line for live TV interviews and a radio ISDN line.)
Listen to “That’s Vanderbilt” interview with Jennifer Escalas.
Why aren’t TV ads always this funny?
While Super Bowl ads often beat the game itself for entertainment value, they wouldn’t be effective any other day of the year, says Jennifer Escalas, associate professor at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management and an expert on consumer research and advertising. “Companies have very different objectives for the ads created for Super Bowl Sunday. Not only are those ads designed to appeal to what may be the widest audience of any television event, but they are judged by consumers and outside media such as Advertising Age primarily on their creativity and humor.” The advertisements companies produce for the other 364 days of the year are created to appeal to a very narrow segment of the population – to the target market for the product or service being advertised, Escalas adds. The objectives for these ads are to persuade the target customer and to get that audience to like, remember and purchase the product.
Media contact: Susanne Hicks, (615) 322-NEWS
susanne.hicks@vanderbilt.edu