Content analysis of the tv commercials in taiwan-2002 korea/japan fifa wiorldcup example

Introduction

The 2002 FIFA World Cup was firstly held in Asian countries of Korea and Japan near the island of Chinese Taipei. Without the TV schedule problem of time lag, the local "ERA TV Company" broadcasted all the 64 soccer games live in the prime time. As a result, the TV viewing rate of FIFA World Cup games reached unprecedented high in Chinese Taipei. With the high rate of TV viewing, the TV commercials provided excellent chances for the companies to promote their products during the period of FIFA World Cup games.

According to previous work made by the Rainmaker Company, a TV commercials survey company in Chinese Taipei, during the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Chen’s(1999) following analysis based on this survey, the Top 5 TV commercial sponsors were: "U-chu pharmaceutical company", "Kingcar company", "Nike", "Adidas" and "McDonald’s". Additionally, among all main business-categories, the Top 3 were: "medical and pharmaceutical products", "foods and beverages" and "automobiles and transportations". Four years later, the TV channels provided another better opportunity for sponsors to promote their brands through commercials. Who were these sponsors? Which business-category did these companies belong to? Was there any difference between the 1998 sponsors and 2002 ones?

Methods

In order to find out answers to these questions above, this research took the method of "content analysis" and followed the steps of data-collecting, category-classifying and frequency-counting to analyze total 4,195 TV commercials broadcasted by the ERA TV Companies in Chinese Taipei, placing in order the names of products and companies according to total seconds of commercials, classifying these commercial sponsors into business-categories, and finally comparing these TV commercial results with the 1998 FIFA World Cup ones.    

Results

There were three main results in this research listed as follows: 

1. During the 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup period, "Suzumarin Capsules" (with total 3,528 seconds) placed the first among all the commercial products while the "U-chu pharmaceutical company" (with total 10,828 seconds) was the first of all the companies.
2. During the 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup period, "medical and pharmaceutical products" (with total 14,905 seconds) played the most parts among all the business-categories.
3. After comparing the results of 1998 and 2002 FIFA World Cup TV commercials in Chinese Taipei, the findings were quite similar, no matter in the order of products’ and companies’ names or the business-categories.

Discussion/Conclusions

According to these results above, the U-chu pharmaceutical company remained the first TV commercials sponsor while its related products still had the most commercial seconds in Chinese Taipei during the past two FIFA World Cup. However, the possible explanation to these findings needed to be further examined by following research concerning the related analysis of the TV audiences and in-depth interview with TV commercial sponsors to find out their target audiences, then, to see if these two groups of audiences were ideally matched.

References

1. Chen, S.T.(2001). The Fifth Element of Promotion. Taipei: Rockstone Culture Publishing.(in Chinese).
2. Rainmaker company website: http://www.rainmaker.com.tw.