Television is so much a part of our daily lives, it's hard to imagine life without it. Consider this: the average person in Britain watches over 25 hours of television per week* and in the USA, over 26 hours**. By age 65, that adds up to nearly nine solid years glued in front of the tube! We're entertained by TV; we're informed by TV and we're persuaded by what we see on it. In other words, TV represents mega bucks and has a major influence on our lives.

In recent years we've seen huge changes in television: the advent of digital TV, new styles of viewing such as hard disk recording with instant playback, Internet TV, pay per view of specialist programmes or films via satellite or cable, and last but certainly not least, an extraordinary proliferation of channels and networks - offering a huge range of programmes that cater to our every whim and interest.

How to find your way through the jungle of such choice? Enter the advertising agencies, design studios, and production houses whose job it is to help you find your way to their network, their programme or their product.

In this chapter you get a chance to look behind the enticing imagery that catches your eye on TV and leads you consciously into an evening's viewing entertainment, or perhaps unconsciously towards buying a particular product.

Four top creative directors from two major production companies (3 Ring Circus based in LA, USA and FrameStore CFC, in London, UK) explain the thinking behind their creative decisions and take you through the production processes involved in rebranding TV networks (3 Ring Circus) and making award winning product commercials (FrameStore CFC).