CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Advertising is one of the most common strategies used to direct persuasive communication to target buyers and public. Achumba and Osuagwu (1994) quote the American Marketing Association (AMA) as defining advertising as any paid form of non-personal presentation.
Advertising on television offers a number of benefits to businesses by incorporating sound, images and movement to make the whole package interesting for consumers.
Advertising on television is the ability to communicate with a very large audience. Most companies adopt various marketing approaches in a bid to maintain or increase profit margins, market shares or sales volume of their product or services.
Television commercials have always been able to appeal to multiple senses through its combination of text, images, sound and motion.
Television is a powerful advertising medium, it relies on both sound and visual effects. These effects can be used in combination to catch the attention of the audience and then reinforce their retention rate by repeating message using both audio and video.
The role of a good commercial includes creation of awareness, generation of favourable attitude and preference in consumers mind for the demand of the particular brand.
Hence, a good commercial is one that is capable of attracting attention, making consumers develop interest, making them desire to buy the product and use the product. Television reaches a large variety of individuals with different backgrounds which makes it cost efficient for advertisers to reach a mass audience.  
A well created television commercial draws the audience to watch it. According to a study by Ball state university, the average individual watches television for more than 4 ½ hours a day. This is more time than individuals spend listening to the radio or reading the newspaper, this increases the visibility of television commercials.
Commercial also known as advertising is a specialized form of communication because in order to satisfy the market function it has to influence the choice of the consumers.
Commercial is one of the most efficient tools that manufacturing companies utilize to create more demand for their products on account of its capacity to reach a large number of people at a relatively short time cost.
Radio advertisers can only appeal to one of the senses of their listeners (hearing). Television on the other hand can take advantage of both the senses of hearing and of vision by appealing to both senses.
A sale price can be spoken during the television commercial then reinforced with a graphic on the television, using a high quality graphic can make it easier for the customers to remember a product than just hearing about it.
To achieve optimum and lasting results all relevant marketing elements should be effectively coordinated with commercial.
The importance of commercial as a marketing promotional activity is to promote product and service flow through appropriate channels, to act as a catalyst in acquainting the consumer with options by which wants may be satisfied.
Television commercial is still the most persuasive and powerful tool for reaching consumers, television commercial has tremendous effect on consumers just by repetition and exposure of catchy jingles and slogans.