Advertorials deny more than they deliver
Jeremy BullmoreWPP
Advertising that mimics editorial denies itself advertising's big bonus.
Not many people remember Jim's Inn. For the first time in this country, the Television Act of 1954 had opened up the BBC to competition from commercial broadcasters – but such was the fear of consequent vulgarity (Lord Reith famously likened the introduction of commercial television to the introduction of bubonic plague and the Black Death) that the language used was primly circumspect. ITV is known as ITV today only because the word 'commercial' was thought to be excessively commercial...