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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.""
If recall is just as good in fast-forward mode, advertisers should wonder why they need to pay for 30-second slots :-)
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.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.
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.
...if an advertiser want me to watch their ads, they ought to make their ads worth watching.
Product Placement.
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!
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.
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."
Now I haven't owned a TV in almost a year. My TV dosage comes in small one or two hour bursts when I stop over my Mom's place.
All I see are Ads for Beer, Computers, Cars, and Perscription drugs for old people. I'm pushing 30, I think most beer sold in the US is weasle piss, I'm set in my ways with scratch-built linux boxes, and I intend on driving my 3 year old car (just finished the payments - woohoo) till the wheels fall off. Now if there were commercials for products I was actually in the market for I might, just might be interested in watching.
Though I do have to say the IBM and beer ads are hilarious. Often more entertaining than the program on the tube. The Microsoft ads are hilarious too, but only in how completely absurd they are.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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