infomercial
Use Infomercial in a sentence
fəˈmɜrBased on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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infomercial (ˌɪnfəˈmɜːʃəl) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| a short film, usually for television, which advertises a product or service in an informative way | |
| [C20: from | |
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
| a gadget; dingus; thingumbob. |
| infomercial information commercial |
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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infomercial
In 1964 a gadget inventor and salesman named Ron Popeil started a company named Ronco and became instrumental in creating the television infomercial industry in the U.S. Poised between superficial talk shows and the strident tones of Madison Avenue, the half-hour ads originally existed in a kind of television netherworld--shown only late at night after most consumers had gone to bed. By 1995, however, infomercials were no longer limited to appliances such as Veg-O-Matics and the Ronco food dehydrator. Their products ranged from high-priced Barbie dolls to citrus fruit, from skin- and hair-care products to diet regimens, and from investment advice to methods for improving interpersonal relationships.
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