Commercial Essay Assignment
As consumers in our society, many of us are almost immune to the constant barrage of assorted advertisements bombarding us via billboards, television, radio, the Internet, email, and snail mail. Some of these ads are trivial--which cola to drink or which deodorant to use. Some deal with important issues like feeding the hungry or preservation of the rain forests. Although we're exposed to all types of ads daily, we have effectively trained ourselves to filter them out. Who doesn't grab the remote when the television commercial comes on? However, as annoying as they may be, all these ads speak volumes about the nature of our society.
Although this situation is the "norm" for us, have you ever thought about how confusing all these different advertisements might be for beings from another planet? Are deodorant soaps or dandruff shampoos as important as feeding starving children? What effect might such ads have on their opinions about our society? Would visitors from outer space have a positive or negative overall image of us from the ads?

For this assignment, you'll need to spend 2 hours watching television, but you’re ONLY going to watch the commercials!
First, record which channel you're watching. Pick the local affiliate of one of the major television stations only: CBS, NBC, or ABC. If you live in Odessa or Midland, you can watch KOSA, KMID, or KWES. No cable or PBS stations.
Then spend two hours watching commercials: Keep track of the total number of commercials you watch. Next, categorize the commercials by type only. You don't have to list each commercial individually. For example: "I watched a total of 199 commercials; one hundred dealt with selling new cars; thirteen were ads for toothpaste, etc."
Now that you've endured all those commercials, let the writing begin.
Your assignment is to compose a