Infomercial

Papa Bernard, in an infomercial for a blender, shown in 1949. This was one of the first informercials.

An infomercial is a kind of advertisment. An infomercial is similar to a regular TV program, but it wants to promote a product or service. The word is made of two parts, information and commercial. Very often there's a way to directly respond, like a toll-free telephone number, or website, where the items can be ordered. Informercials are designd to produce a direct response, that can be measured. They are often pre-recorded. They are shown when there are few people watching television, for example during the night.

Properties

Informewrcials usually have the following properties:

• They are relatively short, common lengths are 15 or 30 minutes
• They say that the own product either has unique features, or is much better than the competition. When the own product is compared, the other products are often shown in a very negative way.
• Very often testimonials are used. These are statements of people who bought the product, and who tell how happy they are with it.
• They show people using the product.
• In order to make people bbuy the product right away, there are deals where they will get some extras for free.