Pushpa 
With Advertisements and Commercials often being used interchangeably, it is common to get a doubt that are they both really the same? or What is the difference between them? Here in this article, we will understand the differences between the advertisement and commercial. Commercials can be said to be a specific form of advertising. Let us compare advertisements and commercials on these following bases:
Presentation of the content:
Advertising is an umbrella term that includes all the ways of spreading your message including the distribution of pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, billboards, etc. These advertisements may be presented through words, pictures, video or audio. The main difference between Commercials and other forms of advertising is that commercials are specifically broadcasted through TV or radio and thus Commercials have mainly visual and aural aspects.
While other forms of advertising are static, commercials are dynamic in the sense that the entirety of the message is not shown at once to the viewer but is shown in a sequence which they need to follow. Usually, many famous celebrities will be included in the cast of the commercial which increases its attractiveness.
Costs of making and running
The cost of making advertisements for newspapers or other forms typically is less than that of making commercials. This is because other than creating the concept for the ad, production of it includes simple steps. But in making a commercial, one has to go through pre-production, filming/production and also post-production which can include many person teams and also shooting at different locations. Celebrities & acclaimed directors can charge a huge amount of money and also filming can cost a lot too based on the things needed.
But, there are some cases where the costs of other forms also rise up due to the inclusion of celebrities in the other forms of the ad. Other than that, The costs of running the advertisement highly depend on the details about how you would want to run it. Say, for example, you want to display an ad for a local newspaper. They can charge as little as $11 for that but national newspapers can charge millions for a full-page, full-color ad. The cost of billboard ads can change depending on their region. Billboards in rural areas cost less than that of larger markets. For a 30-sec commercial, a cost of $5 can be expected for 1000 viewers.
Engagement of the audience
The average time of engagement of the advertisement is higher in commercials than that of other forms of traditional advertising such as newspapers. There is also scope for a repeated showing of the ad on TV such that the message is sent to all the audience or emphasized for a particular audience. Even though repeating can also be done in newspapers, it is not as effective as that of TV.
With the advent of many smart devices, the future of advertising through newspapers or large billboards is unclear because users are tending to stick to these instead of reading newspapers or looking at billboards.
Influence:
Commercials are in general more influential than other forms of advertising. One can say that their visual and aural way of spreading the message is a predominant reason for this. Commercials enable the audience to understand the content intuitively and also the producers to show the content in a more appealing way.
Other than that, Commercials have other perks that can render them more influential than others. One of them is their timing --- if your commercial is shown at the right time where the right people are watching, it can add a lot of potential customers to the business. There are also people who think that as the internet is evolving and penetrating fast, TV and therefore traditional TV commercial advertising is going to die. But TV is evolving and with that, Commercials will evolve too.
