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Study Finds Tivo Less of a Threat to Advertisers
talboito writes "AdAge.com reports that an internal study by Proctor and Gamble concludes that Tivo viewers who fast forward through ads recall their content at similar rates as those watching at normal speeds. The article concludes with a choice quote by Proctor and Gamble's former head of research on the significance of the results; "[Proctor and Gamble] may still go out and try to browbeat the networks into giving them a lower CPM [cost per thousand viewers] on the basis of it, but they'd want to know either way.""
does this mean we will have faster adds on TV?? FP
as the FP poster stated, this could mean FFW ads on regular TV, could get 5+ times as many ads in the allocated 5mins or whatever the break is. :)
However, I think the recall has something to do with recognising an ad that youve seen previously, and the FFW glimpse prods your memory back to that ad - hence achieving brand recognition, which is the overall goal. But just seeing the ad in FFW only, probably wouldnt get the desired effect, especially with no sound.
I.O.U One Sig.
Hmm... Does this make anyone else think of the blip-verts in Max Headroom?
I can just see the advertising agency actually making something like that after this study.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
If recall is just as good in fast-forward mode, advertisers should wonder why they need to pay for 30-second slots :-)
Regardless of their internal report, Tivo-like devices in the long run will be the demise of the 30-second commercial and commercial breaks.
Product placement is the unfortunate future.
how about television, with stations/content that you choose, and no ads at all... for a little more cash
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
Perhaps we'll start seeing reverse-blipverts...
Heh, if fast forwarding through the ads provides the same information content as watching the whole thing, imagine what a waste of time watching advertisements is!
-- shayborg
not trying to tell you what you should be interested in, but have you ever had a Tivo? It is probably one of my top 3 gadgets...
Which is also, incidentally why the lizrd brain is prone to violent outbursts. Sexy outbursts too!
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Just think: If people have the same recall of adverts with Tivo vs. without Tivo, we could improve the economic fortune of the country, maybe even the world ! (grin)
On a only slightly more serious note, I always try to record the limited number of shows that I watch with the intent to avoid commercials. (Although I own a $70.00 VCR rather than a tivo) The only exception to this rule is the news.
'ta
well maybe I would consider it, if I lived in an area that sold tivos...
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
you know, I have tivo and hate ads, yet I always stop fast forwarding when the "great taste-less filling" ad comes up ... (for those that haven't heard about it, it is with two hot babes that beat each other up over beer)
I also regulary watch the Mitsubishi ads too, those are pretty fun
all we need are fun ads
h.Seriously, this doesn't seem to surprising to me. Just getting the image of your brand into someone's head is very important. How often can you tell what an advertisment is for, even with, say, the audio muted? Quite often for me.
I'll make the obligatory reference to blip-verts now, since we're talking about ads and speed. =)
I think TiVo should build an IR sensor into the front of the unit like the ones in auto-flush urinals. When youre playing back a recorded episode it could sense when you leave the room for a beer and automatically edit out the commericals...
Have you seen my stapler?
If you're waiting for a commercial to finish, you aren't really paying attention, just waiting, and snoozing... On the other hand, if your finger is on the fast-forward button, you're paying attention so you don't zoom past the start of the next scene, so you're more likely to catch pieces of the commercial inadvertently.
Don't you know VA Software Corporation is a TiVo marketer?
If you could ignore it that wouldn't be good for business...
The conscious decision to fast forward makes more of a mental impact then dozing thru the whole litany of Smiling happy people getting full filled thru spot less shirts.
This should be read as scathing critique of the add agencies ability not something to do with Tivo.
I once read that the metabolism of a typical teenager watching TV, is lower that same person sleeping. (can find it via google)
Go ahead download some illegal content from Kazaa at least it will stimulate our intellect.
Help fight continental drift.
Whats interesting is that this only covers fast forwarding through ads, and not skipping ads entierly (a la Replay TV). So I presume P&G will still want discounted rates no matter how these results turned out.
Also, what I found more interesting was that in their testing, people barely remembered anything. So it makes sense why commercials are getting more annoying, since it will stick in your head longer.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
do you get paid or just a free peice of hardware?
The filling, I mean. Great, or taste-less?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I think the point is being missed, which for me is that people don't watch ads at normal speed (except for the fun ones, as someone pointed out) so their retention is the same as people who fast forward through the ads (i.e. *deliberately* don't watch ads). Recall can be affected by so many things, it's always been a tenuous call to say that TV advertising has such an effect as to command $m/minute during the Superbowl. I'm sure I can't be the only person to tkae advantage of that moment to go get another beer.
Must have had newborn kids. This PVR has SAVED my TV viewing life. The ability to a)pause live TV, b) rewind when you missed critical dialog during a screamfest, and 3) Watch your favorite 9pm (MST) TV show when you have enough banked time to watch it is invaluable...
Cause sometimes the only time I can watch CSI: Miami is Saturday at 9am.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
the road to blipverts.
"... but they'd want to know either way."
And they've given you exactly 48 hrs to do it.
I'm inclined to think that the retention might be HIGHER for TiVo users. At least they're sitting there in front of the TV watching the screen intently waiting for the optimal second to release the FF button.
Then, of course, 9 times out of 10 you overshoot, and have to run back, meaning that you actually get most of the last ad at regular speed (I can already hear the ad execs charging more for the last spot)
Compare this to 'regular' viewing where many, many people get up for a bathroom break, grab a drink, bite to eat, even (gasp!) converse amongst themselves during the commercial break and therefore don't see ANY ads at all.
Of course, this won't result in the 1/5 duration ad since those TiVo users will now see them at 1/25 normal speed and there has to be a point where there aren't enough frames for the human eye to discern the content - that is until you start talking subliminal messaging, which is a whole other issue.
So a few thousand innocent people get bombed at least they will have peace!
10 bucks says saddam pulls a bin laden (remember him? or did we all forget already) and after a huge battle for baghdad is no where to be found...
Heh, but you want the commercials playing during the break, so you know when to come back. So, as soon as you come back, it should fast forward to the end of the commercials.
I'd prefer a predicting, mind-reading TiVo that just edits out everything you don't want to watch. TV on really-fast forward. Cross cutting between scenes just before you start thinking "couldn't they say this faster?" or "they said this already" assuming you would have been correct. Hmm... The tenses in this paragraph were a bit tricky.
Of Course this is impossible now, and probably forever, but why bother thinking small?
The LA Times is running an article discussing why PVRs aren't in every home. The conclusion is the structure of cable monopolies is preventing rapid adoption.
The headline suggests that recall of ads is the same whether or not someone is fast-forwarding through it. Yet the bulk of the actual article details the statistical problems with the drawing of this conclusion, as well as the likelihood that at the fastest speeds, it's highly unlikely there's anything close to meaningful recall.
...
Of course, the majority of readers who find the headline somehow compatible with their world view will go on and on about it
...if an advertiser want me to watch their ads, they ought to make their ads worth watching.
Some subway systems have ads on their tunnel walls that are meant to be viewed at the speed of a moving train. In the future, perhaps advertisers targeting Tivo users will buy an extra-long commercial slot to play a greatly slowed-down version of their regular ad that appears normal when fast-forwarded.
Of course, Tivo will immediately counter with a fast-fast-forward mode for such ads, which will be met with even more slowed-down spots, and so on...
For those missing the joke, Bush today announced that S.H. and sons had 48 hours to leave Iraq, or the US would start the attack.
Right... it must be pathetic to support the entire free television industry.
Ass.
evil adrian
How can this comment be moderated as a 3, then moderated down as overrated, when a practically identical comment is immediately after it and moderated to a 5 without any overrated modifiers?
I don't mean to whine, but this just boggles my mind.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
...because I don't watch TV.
people with multiple vcrs who only watch stuff they pre-recorded? I'd be very happy if the vcr automatically fastforwarded in a preselected multiple of 15 seconds (cos that is the usual ad slice), but I can do that myself. And strangely I can lose the middle 3 minutes of ads completely because my screen blacks them out on the highest speed.
Does TiVo manage adhoc schedule changes when the chat show host with humungous celeb runs overtime or when the PHB decides to declare war and all shows get interrupted for the press conference? Australian Commercial TV almost never runs on time.
It looks like a nice idea, although the multiple vcrs are still cheaper here, and I'd rather pay for automatic fast forward increments.
And do you have to get a second phone line? Can you talk, tivo, and dsl at the same time?
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
What AdAge failed to disclose in the article is that TiVo is currently an advertiser on the AdAge site.
Try it. Browse around AdAge for a while, and the TiVo banner ad should eventually show up, offering a $100 "insider" discount on an 80-hour TiVo recorder.
begin 644
Come on, those ad geniuses who made Micro Machines were onto this YEARS ago.
We can only hope that as many Americans as possible die a horrible, painful death in the desert and that many many large buildings in this country of brainless drones will be destroyed by terrorists.
Yeah, but did P&G know about the select-play-select-3-0-select hack?
(dunno what that means? google "tivo 30 second skip hack")
I didn't like fast forwarding thru commercials because I had to pay too much attention. But now I just hit that little time-warp button 8 times and walla, i'm back to watching the show.
Only time I watch commercials is when I recognize one I like and then instant-replay jump back to its start.
I can remember those Pampers 6 commercials even if I fast forward through them too.
These researchers are concentrating their effort on what crap - to study who fast-forwards what when and why? No wonder we have not cured cancer, or sent men and women to the moon again since 1972. This useless research serves NOTHING except Proctor & Gamble wastefulness. I will not buy any of their products now
Crap like this makes me want to scream at the lab. I slave for my sh*thead supervisor, and this is what others get paid to research?! I hope all they die in trafic accident.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Product Placement.
I'll agree with this. I FF through most commercial blocks and I still notice who the ad belonged to. If it was clever I'll even back up and watch it. This means I recognize the ads alot MORE than before TiVo, when I would regularly surf other programs when a commercial block came on. Heck, TiVo is -helping- them advertise to me in that way.
/60 slow-motion so that PVR viewers see it in real-time ;)
I'm just waiting until someone clever, like TiVo or another PVR company, creates a commercial that is running in
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Personally, when I didnt have TiVo, an ad would come on, and I had a break. I would go get a snack, take a dump, etc. Now yes it is in fast forward, but at least I watch them. I mean I have to know when to leave fast forward and hit play again right......... So TiVo GOT ads another viewer......
I vote for the Statue Of Liberty. Blow it up, America doesn't deserve it anymore.
Does this means that the networks will be showing blipits and Max Headroom next?
Huh?
The price they offer on the main website is $100 more then whats listed on the insiders deal page. I don't think this page is supposed to be available to the general public, so I think as soon as they notice a whole bunch of people buying 80 hour Tivo's for $250, instead of the $350 they should be going for, they are going to take the page down.
I ordered one of 'em via the website last week, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and I got a local circuit city to match the special website price, plus 10% of the difference, so I got my 2nd one for $240 ($290 with a $50 mail-in rebate). The Tivo.com website sends it with free shipping and you can avoid the sales tax, so that's the better deal. But you get instant gratification from Circuit City.
-Prof MD
When you're fast forwarding through commercials, you still have to pay attention to them. A Tivo doesn't completely eliminate commercials, it just makes them less intrusive and less annoying.
Also, the author's comment regarding triple fast forward is of limited relevance. The faster you FF, the more nimble you have to be in order to avoid going too far and needing to backtrack. It's not reasonable to assume that everyone can FF commercials at full FF speed.
The author also doesn't acknowledge the possibility that amusing ads may be voluntarily viewed. This may also affect commercial recall (P&G may not be the best candidate for this).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Oh, yeah, I do agree that to some extent marketing is an emperor wearing his nice new suit of clothes...
ya know "select-play-select-3-0-select" then you can just use the "skip to end of program" button to skip ad's 30 seconds at a time.. :)
That people fast forwarding through commercials would be paying more attension so that they don't go too far. I don't have TiVo and maybe my point is invalid but I don't pay any attension to the TV during commercials because I can hear when the program comes back on.
They played on this in Max Headroom. For those not in the know, the idea was insanely fast commercials, sort of a play on subliminal advertising (which was still a big concern back then). Watch enough of them however, and they kill your brain (or something equally 80s cheesy :)
I'm spooked every time I see those shorts on TLC, where the announcer says some tagline for some product, but they've electronically sped up so that the guy sounds like he's shilling Mirco Machines. Life imitating Art indeed...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
HEH! You silly Troll, you! What have you got against dearest Michael?
I have been doing this for YEARS on my vcr, yet they wait until now to study commercial viewing habits? Nothing new here.
The conclusion is the structure of cable monopolies is preventing rapid adoption.
Hmm... That's just fucking bizzare.... especially since Comcast and Cox (2 of the top cable companies... especially since Comcast now owns AT&T) are all Tivo investors.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
Since TiVo viewers are already paying close attention to the screen, advertisers could get their message across by displaying the product/deal their pitching as a still on part of the screen. A few seconds of seeing "This Show Sponsored by Chex Cereal" on the bottom of the screen during a fast forward would be, I think, more effective than 30 seconds of pitch wherein they rarely even mention the product until the very end anyway.
--
This post sponsored by Caffeine.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
At the first 2 clicks of ffw (which are 2x and 30x) on the Tivo you can easily make out everything that's going on. Three clicks (60x) reduces most commercial breaks to 2-3 seconds. Even though you have to pay careful attention at that speed to get the resume right (personally my youthful reaction time is too fast for the auto-backup that Tivo does, so I have to wait an extra beat) I still have little or no idea what the skipped commercials were. Using 30s skip is about the same unless you hit it really fast (eg anticipate at least 2 minutes of commercials and hit it 4 times rapidly) in which case you can see even less.
I was amazed at how quickly I adapted to skipping commercials (my 8 year old VCR's ~9x ffw was more like muting than skipping). Now I find it extremely frustrating to watch TV with commercials.
Incidentally, I just realized that we've since purchased two Sprint PCS cell phones. Hmmm...
Anyway, I think this is just a challenge to marketers and ad-makers: make interesting commericials. I mean, come on - some of those commercials are just *bad*. And not the good, I'll remember it because it was so bad, bad. I'm talking *bad*. Some days it saddens me to think that there is actually someone who got paid to sign off and give the "ok" to a certain commercial. Oh well.
Never use a big word when a dimunitive one will suffice.
It's french. It means basically "there it is". When used as an interjection in English it is used to call attention to something. It is not walla. Though, I guess if you're part of the "freedom fries" crowd you need a new word... Hmm... maybe "Freedomla!"
Anyhow, back to that 30 second skip button. I use mine so often I'm surprised the decal on the button hasn't come off. The only annoyance is that most commercials aren't 4 minutes, some are 3, some are 2, some are even 3 1/2. Luckily when I go too far I just hit the 8-seconds-back button a few times and voila, no commercials!
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but why does CPM mean Cost per Thousand? In my naivete I would have thought it meant Cost per Million.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
What you are seeing here are merely volleys in a price negotiation. Don't mistake it for reality. The last thing *anybody* - advertisers, networks, clients - wants is for media delivery to be accurately measured.
(rant on)
All advertising rates are based on The Big Lie, and anything that interferes with this shared revenue-producing delusion is summarily dropped or compromised out of existance.
Audit bureaus came up with the idea of actually counting the number of magazines shipped and then publishing the reports. Magazines then came up with what they called "pass along readership" where they make arbitrary guesses that more than one person reads a single issue. Agencies went along with it, because if clients knew the truth they wouldn't know what the hell to do, and when they don't know what to do they stop spending money.
If I recall correctly, 'People Magazine' was saying that they had a pass-along readership of 18. As in 18 people read every issue because, by their logic, 'People' sat in a lot of doctor's office waiting rooms.
There have been many innovations in television measurement, including Nielsen boxes that measure whose watching a set based on their heat signature, but they've been quietly retired with mumbles about cost or privacy or whatever. They then continue to wildly massage the numbers in the process of projecting truly aweful diary and box data to national viewership.
The fact is that the livelyhood of networks, magazines, outdoor ads, agencies, and the marketing departments at clients is supported by wasted dollars, and your safe bet is on any technology that allows this waste to continue. Anything that threatens to be both accurate an ubiquitous will never see the light of day.
(rant off)
So I read the story like this:
"Researchers in the marketing department of the largest advertising spender in the world have recently declared that despite incontrovertable evidence that people are fast-forwarding through the commercials it took them quite a long time to think up, they actually remember them despite the lack of sound and their carefully-crafted characters running around like time-lapse ants. So despite this incontrovertable evidence, there is fortunately no reason to cut their budgets, fire their agency and lay them all off. When reached for comment, their advertising agency agreed with them a full fifteen percent, which coincidentaly was the amount of their fee."
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Oh, thank goodness! We still take in the shitty insulting, debasing moronic advertising even if we fast forward! Oh happy day! We can still be slaves to the unstoppable shit-machine and still have our tivos! p. Well, folks, once the people realize how long and how blatantly advertisers have been shitting in our mouths, with any luck at all these congenital mind-fuckers will be stood up against a wall and shot down like the verminous subhumans they are.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
They haven't controlled for a possible variable: maybe this just means that TiVo users are smarter than everyone else.
If you don't pretend to be anyone, are you?
So basically it's like compression. The same amount of information is conveyed with much less data.
Or maybe we just weren't watching commercials at all.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
It's not like we haven't seen this before. Remember those shows back in the 60's? Maybe not, perhaps (like me) you werent born yet. However, the revenue model for advertising requires a "blank spot" to allow affiliated stations to do localized adverts, and to allow for updated advertising (ie, more income) on repeat showings, and syndicated programs (we're talking years and years of potential advertising income from a single TV show).
Consequently, this leaves the "ad spot" model vulernable to time shifting ala VCR or (as in my case) Tivo.
Well, Boo-fucking-Hoo. Now they're greedy and can't get themselves off the multibillion dollar habit. Their loss, my gain.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I wonder if the same principle can be applied to other things besides commercials. If I simply skim my textbook quickly, will I be prepared for next week's exam? If the professor talks really fast, would we get the dual benefit of getting out of class an hour early AND not being screwed on our homework? Imagine the possibilities...
I can't believe anybody even watches TV anymore, even if you have a Toshiba 27" Stereo TV with Flat Picture Tube Model: 27AF42. If you would get rid of TV viewing, maybe you wouldn't see so many advertisements!! You would have more time to spend outdorrs with a Wham-O Frisbee Disc. Maybe while indores you could lern how to spel better with a nice new Merriam-Webster dictionary. So reduce your headaches from these pitiful attempts to control your life with a few Nuprin. Little. Yellow. Different. Better. Then you can start to lead a healthier life without having to read George Foreman's Guide to Life: How to Get Up Off the Canvas When Life Knocks You Down. Are you listening to me? Grab a Q-Tip and clean your ears! Grab a Kleenex and clean your snout! It's time to rebel against this torturous, Dirt Devilish attempt by these corrupt, Double-Click type companies at all costs! Join the Bull Moose Party today and soon our lives will be full of things with Great Taste, yet Less Filling. Follow me to (Financial) Freedom (at motleyfool.com)!!!
This isnt much of a surprise. We're already familiar with thousands of corporate logos and it doesn't seem to take much brain processing to spot one in a jumbled fast forward. We're already conditioned to find that Nike swoosh or Chevrolet logo.
I like to take it up a notch and silently think to myself, "Crap, crap, crap" as the commercials pass by. A little counter-conditioning can't hurt.
I don't even know why we even have an ad industry. I'm much more impressed by something as simple as, "This show is brought to you by Snickers" compared to a few fresh-faced teen models who would never eat a high fat and high sugar candybar begging Mom for a king-size snickers. Really now, they don't need to insult the intelligence of their audience to get attention.
These articles just keep coming, talking about how even though we are substituting a pay service with a free one the companies who own the pay service keep making the same profits.. I just don't really buy it. I haven't bought a CD in about 5 years, save 1 or 2 rare cds that I couldn't find mp3s of, even in my well connected IRC world. If I fast forward commercials on tivo and recognize them, the recognition only takes place because I've seen the commercials before. For me, I'll bet this study would fail because I have no TV at all, I just watch divx episodes of Sealab all day. It's all a big beautiful rebellion against market-shaped consciousness and pay-per-living. The more we seperate the means of our survival from our lifestyle, the more we do not understand how the work we do fuels the means for our lifestyle. Guess we're boned. *shrug*
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
Does anyone else envision ad execs forcing network programmers to pack in 15 minutes of commercials so the TiVo audience will be able to absorb 3x as many ads in the same amount of time? If this trend continues, how many much time does an obese person have to spend viewing these blipverts before he spontaneously combusts?
Next stage will probably be the "Blipverts" from Max Headroom...
So I guess the TV stations could counter-argue that because of TiVo, the same program will be watched multiple times by different people in a household or people enjoying them over again. Hence advertising rates should go up due to this "pass-along" viewership.
my blog
It's Procter & Gamble, not Proctor and Gamble. How hard is it to learn to spell the name of one of the largest companies in the world. Geez.. go to their website if you don't know their name!
(only 1 "o" in Procter, and no "and"... it's an ampersand!) Does anyone out there proofread this stuff? ...and no, I don't work there, and never have.
Give it back to Frenchies: they deserve it!
Uh..Oh.. I hope we don't get those funky blipverts. ...Mind you it'll reduce unemployment!
See, the thing about Slashdot is, you never really have to comment, because if you scroll down far enough, someone's already said it.
sic
I've suggested to TiVo a couple of times that they make a minor tweak to their software and publish a protocol that lets advertisers mark (using one of the vertical blank lines) the frames that constitute the start of a commercial and the important frames.
Then as I FF (I use the second level) through the commercial break, instead of seeing random frames from the commercial, I'll see the frames the advertiser wants me to see. And if I hit play, TiVo will know where to rewind to in order to show me the commercial that interested me.
Everyone wins; I don't waste any time (FF speed is the same as before) watching commercials that don't interest me. Advertisers get a chance to interest me. And TiVo gets a valuable new income stream -- market research. They learn, for example, that families with 43 year old white males rarely are interested in douche ads during Farscape.
Taking this a step further, future TiVo devices could shuffle the ads, replacing ads that it is clear that my family won't be interested in with ones that we might be, sort of what google does with their adwords.
No downside for us in this. The zip through the commercials time isn't changed. Because let us face it, what we hate are not commercials, but commercials we are not interested in.
As a side note, one downside of the TiVo FF (even when not at fastest speed) is that I tend to miss ads for upcoming programs that might interest me. This would really help with that.
"World Domination - a fun, family activity"
Strangely enough, over here in the UK it is possible to download adverts from various websites: http://www.visit4info.com http://www.absoluteandy.com After 20 to 30 years, adverts achieve cult status and live on happily in our memories: http://www.tv-ark.co.uk Or maybe, it's because the adverts are more entertaining that the schedules.
Impale advertisers instead, and say "Up yours!" to Madison avenue.
--
Vlad Tepes
I haven't had a television signal in my home for almost a year. Whenever I go oever a relative's house you see them basked in the glow of the great american fireplace.
"Anyone want to go for a bear?"
Silence, stirring...
"Guys this is a re-run of a show I didn't care to watch in the first place."
Angry grunting that I'm interrupting their show.
"Say can we at least mute the commercials?"
Objects thrown. Cat's hiss. The room grows darker.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I have found a similar effect with movies. I run a decent number of movies a month thru my Netflix account, and many of them are tossed in the rental queue for the reason of "why-the-heck-not." I discovered my main dvd player (a Pioneer dv525) can display subtitles while fast forwarding, so for those movies I only "sorta" want to watch, I can watch at a faster pace and still catch the dialog. I can speed-read, which helps the occasional moments where the texts moves too quickly, but most dialog is slow enough that one would have to be looking the other way to miss it. Voila! I still get the movie watched, but only half the time spent. Now anything sci-fi or action usually has too much in the FX department to make this work for all movies, but it comes in handy, especially for that "I need to send this back" feeling I imagine comes standard with any given Netflix subscription. I don't own a Tivo, but I have used a friends before quite a bit, and I have noticed that in FF, the words of an advert are the part that sticks the most. Imho, advertisements with more text are liable to be more effective when viewed at speed. Really, though, ads are most effective when they are creative, and not the same tired cliche, or the same hot chick, or the same inflated claims over and over and over...
Here's an idea that I can't believe it hasn't been done yet : create commercials that, in addition to the regular video ad, displays a banner ad at the top for the same product. I would be willing to bet that you would score MORE recognition with PVR owners just because they're paying strict attention.
I imagine the reason this hasn't been done yet is because either not enough people own PVRs, or nobody in the advertising industry is willing to stick their neck out and be the first to try something new.
Many commercials have meant to be bad.
You're watching TV, a commercial piss you terribly and you decide to never buy this product.
Later at the store when you will have to choose between two products, it's the one with the most familiar name that you will buy.
Study finds that 67% percent of studies don't prove anything. (+- 33% error)
I think the entire issue of commercial skipping has been around since VCR's got the ability to do visual fast forward through commercial breaks.
On a lot of the newer VCR's (I have a Mitsubishi HS-U595), you can press one button and fast-forward the playback in fixed-time increments; my VCR can do it between 30 and 180 seconds in 30-second increments. The 150 and 180 second skip modes are enough to fast-forward through station breaks in a small fraction of the normal time; you suddenly realize how much less time it takes to watch an episode of your favorite TV show in playback mode.
They could, but with the nature of Tivo (which logs your every move and sends it back to home base) they could know those figures exactly.
I think it's more likely that the self-serving slop will come in when they try to project that data set to the rest of the population. You'll hear things like:
Stockholders: "Tivo users are fast-forwarding through all our ads! You told us to spend $30 million on those ads!"
Marketing Dept: "Sure, but keep in mind that our proprietary in-house research says that the current crop of Tivo users are early adopters, and early adopters are button fetishists who would fast-forward through the video of their first child being born. They just aren't representative. Our research also shows that VCR users, although traditionally unmeasurable, lovingly watch our ads over and over, often getting up early on a Saturday just to watch a mix tape of our ads. There are a lot more VCRs than Tivos, so keep those dollars rolling!"
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Bushnell's Underdog Theory: "Anything can manage a 10% share against Microsoft, no matter how absurd it's problems."
Not a flame, I dig your posts. But it should be "its" not "it's" in your sig.
-moderaters are on crack. (yes i moderate too)
-Moderaters nevers watch the results of their moderation.
-whining about moderation is moderated off-topic (as should this one if it wasn't posted as a.c.)
-It is moderated by independant moderators who are not communicating, there is no moderator forum or something like that.
-you can moderate as well, just login, and metamoderate. In a few weeks ou get moderator points to wast.
Long-term, though, it will become irrelevant. I like my Tivo, but before I even bought it, I knew it wasn't forever. Someday we'll all be using P2P to share edit scripts so that only a handful of people go through the trouble of fast-forwarding through ads, and the rest of us will have fully-automated ad-skipping, without even the blipverts.
By the time the industries adapt to Tivo, ad-haters won't be using Tivo (as you currently know it) anymore.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Aww, their's no real difference is they're? I think your just splitting hares.
Thanks man, I never would have noticed.
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
of course, what teevee execs may be most afraid of is teevee's inefficiency as an advertising medium. the article quoted an expert about how retention rates are low to begin with. if everyone who watched teevee switched to using tivos and never watched commercials again, and if advertisers don't see any effect in their sales, it may be a solid demonstration that teevee ads just aren't worth the money.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Am I the only one who noticed this?
PD: Nice... I can be a spell nazi, too. I'm feeling very succesful right now.
It doesn't happen a lot, maybe once or twice an evening, but it kind of surprised me that I did it at all.
What's more, I still recognize most of the ads that I blip over from seeing them on "live" TV. I guess TV advertising is so redundant that I really only need a fraction of a second of the ad to recognize its content.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I work in advertising and I've asked creative directors if they take "zipping" (the term most used for FFing commercials around here) into account when planning an ad; more long shots of product names or usage, and fewer jump cuts and scene changes so that the message remains coherent at FF speeds.
They've all said "NO", but a couple indicated they thought it would be worth investigating. But since the spots are all evaluated by the client at 1x, it's hard to make arguments about 15x comprehension when you can't sell basic items at 1x..
...and we'll see the name of the product and the company name as we Fast Forward the commercial?
TIVO or replayTV, you'll still see the commercial, but it's just a high speed, right? Does REPLAYTV just FF the video, or blank it out?
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
Compare this to when I can't FF, and I either zone out, go for a beer, or food, or bathroom break. . . but I'm not watching the screen at all.
I sure hope the marketroids take this into account when doing a study.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
ok, bear with me, there's lots of room on digital cable. when a program is being recorded to a device the commercial gets dropped and instead you end up with a simple 5 second image/logo at the beginning and end of a show saying "The episode of Ducktales brought to you by the good folks at Texaco"
/.ers will tell me how dumb it is.
Those sorts of ads always seem to stick with me more. I can still remember a miniseries about George Washington that was on NBC back in the day that only had ads for GM and they were really short ads. So now when I think GM I think cars and george washington with little interruption.
I'm not saying we should go back to the days of NBC News brought to you by Camel cigarettes only but the image logo could have all the companies that paid for the show to be on.
anyway, just an idea and I'm sure a million
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Ads do three different thigns:
Pay for the show/otherwise amuse us.
Give Name recognition to a product
If a service/product is new/unknown, it informs the public about it.
Only the last service can not be done via fast-forward viewing. Frankly it is so rarely used that is not that big a deal..
Yes, advertisers claim that a "good" ad will get people to buy coke over pepsi or whatever, but that is bullcrap. People might try it once, but no one, not even a status obssessed teen really buys one product instead of another because an ad told them to. (But they will insist on a "known" product that was advertised over an "un-known".)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I don't know if this is being done on purpose, but I've been finding myself accidently stopping my FF in the middle of a commercial because I've mistaken a commercial for the show I'm watching. When you are going by at 60x it is hard to tell sometimes if the commercials are over. One way that this has occured is that I have been stopped by advertisments for the show I'm watching. If you see the main characters of the show, or something that looks like the setting of your show. It's hard to tell at 60x that it is actually a commercial for your show. In addition I have sometimes been fooled by commercials that simply have a similiar setting to the show I am watching.
I would not be suprised if advertisers were able to add enough background to commercials so that at 60x they look enough like the show to fool a significant portion of the population (5%-20%). The viewers who are caught by this might even pay more attention to these advertisments than viewers without FF capability.
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
The Apple one with Vern Troyer and the tall bball player, for example.
Funny, I think of that ad as the one with Yao Ming and that short guy from the Austin Powers films.
Mod +1 informative
that we get like when an Australian team unexpectedly makes the finals of some sport.
Ie in the morning, ads for evening movie, in the evening, golf - argh.
But at least you wouldn't need a second phone line.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I've use Tivo to go back and re-watch interesting commericals. Of course, that requires interesting commericals....:-)
:-)
(Would be good for getting those phone numbers off commericals too
Yup, no effect at all!
sulli
RTFJ.
Vintage Jewelry for that special someone.