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

New feature

[onthefenceman]

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...

LA Times article

[JoeCotellese]

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.

Next up: ads designed for fast-forward mode

[jbuhler]

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...

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.

Re:so

[mz001b]

does this mean we will have faster adds on TV?? FP

I hope not, blipverts can cause your head to explode.

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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