A commercial advertisement on television (usually abbreviated to TV commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length infomercials). Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services and ideas since the dawn of television.

The effect upon the viewing public of commercial advertisements, and mass media in general, has been the subject of philosophical discourse by such luminaries as Marshall McLuhan. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research, is often used as a metric for television advertisement placement, and consequently, for the rates charged to advertisers to air within a given network, television program, or time of day (called a "daypart").

Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects. His films, which include The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the Bad Boys and Transformers series, have grossed over three billion dollars world-wide. He is co-founder of commercial production house The Institute, a.k.a. The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. He is co-chair and part-owner of the digital effects house Digital Domain. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production house which has remade horror movies including Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Michael Bay was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was raised by his adoptive parents Harriet, a bookstore owner/child psychiatrist, and Jim, a CPA. Bay's grandfather was Russian. His cousin, Susan Bay, is the wife of Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy. He attended the exclusive Crossroads School, in Santa Monica, California. Bay often traces his interest in action films back to an incident during his childhood. As a boy, he attached some firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother's 8mm camera. The fire department was called and he was grounded.

Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971) is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1989 debut as frontman with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90's. Wahlberg is well known for his roles in films such as Boogie Nights (1997), Three Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), Rock Star (2001), The Italian Job (2003), I Heart Huckabees (2004), Four Brothers (2005), The Departed (2006), Invincible (2006), Shooter (2007), and The Fighter (2010), Date Night (2010). He has also served as the executive producer of the TV series Entourage, Boardwalk Empire and How to Make It in America.

Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children, with siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died in 2003 at age 44), and Donnie. His father was of half Swedish and half Irish ancestry, and his mother is of Irish, English, and French Canadian descent. Maternally, Wahlberg is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wahlberg's mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and Wahlberg's father, Donald Edward Wahlberg, was a Teamster who worked as a delivery driver. His parents divorced in 1982. Wahlberg had a Roman Catholic upbringing and attended Copley Square High School (but never graduated) on Newbury Street in Boston.

Brittany Heyworth Marling (born August 7, 1982, Chicago, Illinois) is an American writer, producer, director, and actress.

She graduated from Georgetown University in 2005 with a degree in economics. She was named "Brit" after her Norwegian maternal great-grandmother.

She first gained recognition in 2004 for the documentary Boxers and Ballerinas which she co-wrote with Mike Cahill and Nicholas Shumaker and co-directed with Mike Cahill. Marling also co-wrote, co-produced, and acted in the 2011 films Sound of My Voice and Another Earth. Both of these films were featured at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, with Another Earth winning the Alfred P. Sloan Prize for outstanding film with science, technology or math as a major theme.

Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor and musician. Pitt is known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and in television for his role as Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Pitt made his off-Broadway debut in 1999 in the play The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek at the New York Theatre Workshop. A casting agent, whom Pitt mistook as a police officer attempting to arrest him, noticed him and recommended him for a guest role on the television series Dawson's Creek (he played Henry Parker in 15 episodes between 1999 and 2000). His breakout role as the lover of a transgender rock star in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2001 led to supporting roles in Bully and in mainstream Hollywood fare such as Murder by Numbers and The Village, as well as the lead in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers.

He next appeared in Asia Argento's The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, and headlined Gus Van Sant's Last Days, playing a rock star based on Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. He performed all of the songs, which closely resembled Cobain's guitar and singing styles. On set, he met Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, who had been hired by Van Sant to serve as the film's music consultant. The pair formed a close bond, with Moore writing, "[Gus] wanted me to hang out with Michael and talk about his character, and let him be in character. We ended up spending a lot of time together. My daughter Coco still relates to Michael as Blake from Last Days."