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.""

Comments

Blipverts

[drmofe]

If recall is just as good in fast-forward mode, advertisers should wonder why they need to pay for 30-second slots :-)

Re:Blipverts

[martyros]

Because when you're fast-forwarding through something, you have to pay attention so you know when the commercials are over. For normal TV, you can just wander around and not pay attention to the commercials. It only takes you a second to realize the commercials are over and to start paying attention again. But you don't want to skip the first 30 seconds of the show by accident, so you actually *watch* the ads to find when they're over.

It's sort of like those guys who say, "I drive better when I'm drunk, because I really have to focus on what I'm doing..." Yeah.

great taste - less filling

[hashmap]

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.

Re:great taste - less filling

[evilviper]

Problem is that the commercials you think are fun are the ones that I find so bad that I change the channel.

Makes sense.

[TheSHAD0W]

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.

This is a reflection of the Adds not Tivo

[bstadil]

Wow, This is bad.

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.

I'll say it again...

[vanyel]

...if an advertiser want me to watch their ads, they ought to make their ads worth watching.

Sometimes, I actually want to watch commericals...

[Yort]

Okay, so am I the only one who ever actually *wants* to watch commercials? Only very rarely, of course, but a small (very small) subset of commercials are entertaining. The Apple one with Vern Troyer and the tall bball player, for example. And my fiancee makes me stop any time the Sprint commercial with the dachshounds is on, and laughs histerically at it every time.

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.

I used to be a media planner, and believe me. . .

[Fritz Benwalla]

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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