Time: The "silent" cultural value in American television advertising

The depiction of time as a cultural value has received rather limited atten tion in the advertising literature, despite its presence in ads either expl icitly or implicitly. This study attempts to fill that void by offering a f ramework for analyzing the many ways that time is depicted in television ad vertising. The key time elements noted are Limited Time, Marking Time More Time, Oriented Time, and Sequenced Time. While the framework emerged from a sample of ads in the United States, it can alert advertisers to important differences in time concepts within other cultures and among different ethn ic groups.