An Evaluation of Food Commercials During Soap Operas

Abstract

Seventy-two hours of programming from four networks and three time slots was videotaped for later analysis. All taping was done between January and March of 1998. Timing was done with a stop watch and one person reviewed all the commercials for implicit and explicit messages. Of the 1042 total commercials, 25.9% (270) were for food. Per hour there were 11.3 food commercials and 43.4 total commercials. Mean length of food commercials was 23.1 seconds and non-food commercials was 25.3 seconds. Commercials on CBS and ABC averaged longer man on NBC and FOX. Candy/sweets/gum was the product category advertised most frequently in the Soap Opera time slot (18.5% of food commercials). Supplements ranked second appearing in 10.7% of the food commercials and oils/margarine ranked third at 9.6%. The number one explicit message was a reference to the taste of the product. The number one implicit message during Soap Operas was “family/lads like it”, “nutritious/healthy” ranked second, and “gives you energy” ranked third. Television commercials are important in setting eating trends and should be monitored regularly to determine what the public is being told.