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