Earlier this year, software company Mountain (also known as MNTN) released a commercial in which actor and MNTN Chief Creative Officer Ryan Reynolds teamed up with a marketing executive from watchmaker Bulova to explain how the new MNTN Matched system uses artificial intelligence to connect advertisers to audiences.
It begins with Reynolds looking directly at the camera. “On July 1st, 1941 at 2:29PM exactly,” he says, “Bulova aired the first ever television commercial and revolutionized advertising.”
There’s only one problem. The short black-and-white Bulova commercial shown while Reynolds talks isn’t the first television commercial from July 1st, 1941. It’s not even a real commercial. It’s a recreation uploaded to YouTube on October 5th, 2011 by Primer Brief:
Here’s the description, which isn’t entirely accurate, first in Spanish and then English courtesy of Google Translate:
En realidad este no es el comercial original, que no se conserva, sino una recreación.
Lo pautó la marca de relojes Bulova y duraba 20 segundos, durante los cuales el único sonido que se oía era la voz de un locutor que decía: “America runs on Bulova time” (Los Estados Unidos se mueven al ritmo de Bulova”).
Y lo mejor de todo fue que pautarlo costó apenas 9 dólares: pautarlo hoy en la tanda del Super Bowl (la transmisión televisiva más cara del mundo) costaría alrededor de 2 millones de dólares, ya que el segundo de transmisión está a unos 100.000 dólares.In reality this is not the original commercial, which is not preserved, but a recreation.
It was scheduled by the Bulova watch brand and lasted 20 seconds, during which the only sound that could be heard was the voice of an announcer saying: “America runs on Bulova time.”
And the best of all was that it cost just 9 dollars to schedule it: to schedule it today in the Super Bowl round (the most expensive television broadcast in the world) would cost around 2 million dollars, since the second broadcast is about 100,000 dollars.
You’ll notice the video uploaded by Primer Brief has no sound. The “America runs on Bulova time” voiceover was added by Dave Birss, who uploaded his video to YouTube on October 20th, 2011:
At least a half dozen copies of the same video, with or without the added voiceover, are available on YouTube. Unfortunately, these videos all call it the first television commercial, which it isn’t.
Bulova did indeed air the first authorized television commercial in the United States on July 1st, 1941. It ran on NBC’s pioneering TV station WNBT in New York City prior to the 2:30PM ET start of a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies.
No recording of the commercial exists, making it an example of lost TV. Here’s how the July 7th, 1941 issue of Broadcasting magazine described it:
Bulova Watch Co., New York, opened and closed the day’s transmissions on this station with a visual adaptation of its familiar radio time signal. A standard test pattern, fitted with hands like a clock and bearing the name of the sponsor, ticked off a full minute at 2:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. for the edification of the viewers-in. This two-program contract also provides television’s first success story, for following the opening day’s test the sponsor immediately signed up for daily time-signals for the standard 13-week period.
Broadcasting later published a photograph of the special test pattern in its July 14th, 1941 issue:
Copyright 1941 Broadcasting Publications, Inc.
The MNTN Matched commercial debuted in June but I only saw it for the first time this week. Am I the only person in the world who watched it and realized the Bulova commercial within the MNTN Matched commercial wasn’t the historic Bulova commercial from 1941? Probably. Still, I applaud MNTN and Bulova for creating a commercial that touches upon a forgotten piece of television history, even if they got it a little wrong.
For anyone interested, you can learn more about the MNTN Matched commercial at Forbes, DesignRush, and AdAge.
References:
“Novel Commercials in Video Debut.” Broadcasting. 7 Jul. 1941: 10.
Image Credit:
“Television Time.” Broadcasting. 14 Jul. 1941: 43.
