Youngsters Skip DVR Ads Less Than Seniors

Dekortage writes "Analyzing DVR viewing research, Ad Age has noted something unexpected: older DVR users are more likely to skip ads than younger DVR users. The skew is particularly apparent among men: 50% of seniors skipping all the ads, but only 20% of teens do so. Women of any age group tend to be around 35%. Ad Age hypothesizes that younger viewers 'just pay attention to other media when the ads are on TV or, worse yet, perhaps the TV is just 'background music'... I always thought that ad skipping was a major benefit of DVRs. Do you skip all the ads?"

Comments

what is this television?

[opencity]

I barely watch tv and when I do the ads are the best part.
well ... there's bbc world news

Re:what is this television?

[Kpau]

Disclosure: I am 50, I don't watch more than a few hours per week. I'll watch *entertaining* television ads. However, they stop being entertaining after the fifth or sixth viewing. When I see the *same* commercial 5 or 6 times in a two hour block, the advertzoids have lost my willingness to view their ad. Non-entertaining ads lose immediately. Shouting at me loses immediately. Gross repetition of the same ad loses immediately. Ads I'm really willing to watch are the ones that evolve or tell a story over a few chained commercials. I don't care if it costs them more - if they want me to watch it, they have to work harder. Frankly, I'd like to see fewer commercials per hour, or bundled at the hour marks -- and I'd be willing to tolerate product placement within a series like they used to do in the 1950s and 60s. Believe it or not that was less intrusive and actually more enticing to buy the product because you saw it used in context. (mmmmmm, Blammo's Evaporated Milk made these cookies scrumptious, don't you think, George?)

Ads?

[elvum]

I don't have adverts on my television channels... ;-)

Re:Ads?

[Bazman]

What about all the ads for other BBC programmes? Trailers, promos, Radio 1 DJ ego-vertising? I sure skip those! I even skip the credits of most BBC shows now that they shrink them down to 1/8 screen size...

Re:Ads?

[jcupitt65]

I don't have ads on my tech news site ... because they are now so intrusive and annoying.

I skip ads the right way...

[ludomancer]

.. by not watching at all! This is trite, but I stopped watching TV specifically because of advertising. If I had a DVR, I would most definitely skip them, but from the few shows I've downloaded in the past I can see they're just putting the ads in the show itself now, so... Guess I'll keep not watching TV instead.

I just really hate that everything in our society has to be about selling you something, or pushing something else into your view.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[teebob21]

The last bit in your post made me think...so prepare for a little ramble... Is today's society really any different than in the past? Corporate sponsorship of such things as stadiums is relatively new, but every time I read an old newspaper (I'm talking Wild West to Great Depression) I am fascinated by the blatant advertising for snake oil remedies and get-rich-quick gold rush schemes. It was right out there on the front page, too. Are we really any different today in America than the rowdy Chinese and Indian markets of yesterday? Perhaps the only difference is that these ads come faceless, in print or in video, rather than a hard-up vendor pushing his wares on the market corner.

To that end, why are there so many ads? Well, ads simply *work*. If they didn't, there would be no marketing departments and no billboards, no jingles on the radio, no Super Bowl extravaganza commericials.

I also think ad dollars (and the inevitable ads they pay for) save the average American a lot of money each year. How, you might say? Ad sales finance ventures that may otherwise be unprofitable or unsustainable. When Google became more than just the new kid on the block, and needed to finance a "real" business, they turned to ad sales for revenue. Broadcast TV is free to the public only because advertisers pay for airtime. I cannot imagine a scenario where ABC/NBC/CBS could stay in business broadcasting for free, without the life support of ad sales. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Even if 13 minutes of every half hour program is advertising, I get to watch an episode of [your favorite show] for free, courtesy of Tide or Tampax or Ford or whichever ad was on while I was digging in the fridge for some mustard on my sandwich. Unfortunately, those broadcasters (and most cable networks) are now addicted to this revenue and try to find more new places to sell ad space, like in-show interstitials.

Does some advertising go to far? Certainly. There's no need for annoying interstitials during a show, especially when it covers up an important part of the action. Do ad dollars shape the world we see today? Of course. Some of our most American retreats are named for advertising. Wrigley Field for example...possibly the first stadium named for an advertiser. It's a historic name now, but we're all weary of Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T Wireless/Minute Maid Park and the Nokia Sugar Bowl. (That said, I would have hated to see Candlestick Park in San Francisco fade away into the shadows over something simple like the naming rights...my all time favorite ballpark, and I'm not even from California)

Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society. Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind), I'll take a few ads and nearly constant product placement. Besides, I didn't buy a Tivo for nothing!

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Eivind]

Yes we're different. Not perhaps, different than a MARKET earlier, the purpose of a market is, afterall, to SELL stuff. But different in the pervasiveness. This has many reasons. One is a large selection of goods that are really quite equivalent to the buyer, where marketing tries to create incentive to select brand A over brand B on reasons other than price alone when really the differences are debatable. Another is the rising distance (physical and otherwise) between producer and consumer. You don't -know- the guy growing your potatoes anymore. And so mass-marketing has taken over from reputation and word-of-mouth. The worst is, though, that it is EVERYWHERE. Walk down a street in Berlin, and the Brandenburger Tor, one of the most famous landmarks there is is under renovation, and covered with a GIGANTIC telecom-banner. Your shopping-cart has advertising on the handlebar. So does the fuel-pistol-thing when you refuel. All the products you buy are packaged in advertising. TV has more comercials than programming, radio ain't much better. The Internet is filled with banner-ads and stupid flash-crap. Things wheren't always like this. And I'm not convinced we're better off for it. I'm not in favour of banning advertising or anything. But I *am* in favour of having a reasoned debate about under just which rules we want it. And I don't think "anything goes" is it. There is such a thing as visual pollution.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't say that ads save anybody money...in the end those advertising costs just get passed on to the person buying the advertised product.
 
For instance, in the US the big pharmaceutical companies spend a lot more on advertising than they do on R&D, but ultimately the ads are paid for along with the prescription (or the insurance that allows one to afford the prescription).

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Anonymous Coward]

To that end, why are there so many ads? Well, ads simply *work*. No they don't. All scientific (psy) studies to establish whether or not they work (well, the ones I have read) have been inconclusive. They show a tendency/inclination towards familiarity, but have been unable to prove that advertising actually increases familiarity with a product.

The advertising system *works*, but not in the way that it succesfully directs consumerism: it's a large market in and of itself, and I'd posit that it's become a self-sustaining ecology rather than a result-oriented practice. I see advertising as a self-fulfilling prophecy: it exists only because businesses believe it works, and continues to exist because consumers believe that the product with the most expensive advertising campaign must therefore be the best.

Of course, that's not to say that new products shouldn't be brought to the attention of its intended target market (aka product positioning). But advertising is way past (below) that level of sophistication.

disclaimer: yes I'm biased. I actually switched to another telecom provider because my current one managed to start a truly obnoxious advertising campaign (KPN Hi).

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[pla]

I also think ad dollars (and the inevitable ads they pay for) save the average American a lot of money each year. How, you might say? Ad sales finance ventures that may otherwise be unprofitable or unsustainable.

Then such ventures should fail. I have no problem with that.

Advertising makes products that I do want cost more, simple as that. Without spending money trying to convince people who don't want a product that they need it anyway, companies would have a lower overhead and thus could sell for less. Of course, they would sell less overall, and only companies with legitimately useful products would thrive (with the occasional freak exception, of course), but I don't view either of those as necessarily a "bad" thing.

Look at our society, look at the current economic crisis, look at Bratz dolls, and tell me we don't have an outright disease of buying crap we don't need. We have a problem, and we can thank advertising for hefty chunk of that.


Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society.

Just as you can have dinner without gorging yourself to the point of bursting; Just as you can drink without passing out drunk; You can have capitalism without encouraging people to spend more than they have on crap they don't need.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind), I'll take a few ads and nearly constant product placement. Besides, I didn't buy a Tivo for nothing!

Ooh, nice bit of product placement there! :-)

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Jellybob]

You can have capitalism without encouraging people to spend more than they have on crap they don't need.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

The problem isn't that people are buying things, it's that they're buying things that are truly unneccesary, and in some cases actually harmful.

Taking the example of Bratz dolls, if I had children, I wouldn't even consider buying them. As far as I can see, they're teaching children that being succesful is the same as being famous. For any reason, no matter how degrading.

It appears that society agrees though. The person named as the most popular role model in the UK for teenage girls recently was Amy Winehouse. Which leads me to think I should probably leave the country, before another generation of kids grow up who believe they're entitled to fame just because they exist, instead of having to work for it. After all, if Amy can do it just by getting wasted in front of cameras now and again, why shouldn't they?

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[somersault]

The person named as the most popular role model in the UK for teenage girls recently was Amy Winehouse That is insane. So teenage girls want to be drug/alcohol fuelled nervous wrecks with their partner in jail (and from a quick google I see he almost died in freaking prison from a drugs overdose, how on earth do they manage to get that stuff in there?)? Amy has a spectacular voice, but I can't see anything else attractive about her life. Of course I'm a mid twenties male, not a teenage girl, so maybe my priorities are a little off. Who voted for her to be the 'most popular role model'? I dont think I'll ever understand these crazy women-folk.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Digital Vomit]

Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind), I'll take a few ads and nearly constant product placement.

I almost believed you weren't a shill for some advertising or marketing agency until I read that hilarious line. "If we didn't have ads plastered everywhere, we'd have COMMUNISM!!!1!"

Ads are not so much a product of a free capitalist society as they are a symptom of a culture that values money over things like time, aesthetics, and integrity.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[DrLang21]

Advertising makes products that I do want cost more There's a double edged sword here. Without advertising, new product awareness takes an extremely long time to mature. You are relying entirely on word-of-mouth from those who just happened to walk by and notice it in a store. This means volume will be extremely low and cost per item relatively high. The consequence of this is that the manufacturer must charge more for the product. It always costs a lot less per unit to make 1,000,000 of an item than to make 1,000 of an item. Advertising done appropriately spreads product awareness rapidly, informing those who would want the product that it exists, thereby increasing the product market and lowering the price. The problem with advertising only comes when advertising is done in excess and causes the prices to start to climb again.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[garett_spencley]

"Taking the example of Bratz dolls, if I had children, I wouldn't even consider buying them. As far as I can see, they're teaching children that being succesful is the same as being famous. For any reason, no matter how degrading."

Wow. Just wow.

And I suppose that you never had anything like Ninja Turtle toys growing up ? I remember when they first became popular that parents everywhere were worried that the only thing TMNT taught children was how to be violent. Same reason toy guns were banned at my grade school in the 80's.

If you didn't have any Ninja Turtle action figures I'm sure there's lots of other examples of toys from previous generations that you grew up on and are no worse off for it.

The way you and the parent are talking is like people are sheep and the advertisers are pulling puppet strings and forcing them to spend their money on unnecessary crap at the expense of society. You're not giving people enough credit and it's actually a little insulting.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Then such ventures should fail.

Why?

Advertising makes products that I do want cost more, simple as that.

No, woefully bad advertising makes products cost more, and if a company's advertising fits that description, they can usually tell by the lethargic sales. If the advertising is effective enough to recoup costs, it will pay for itself through increased profits. Without it, those increased profits those shareholders demand must come from your pockets. You've got it completely backwards.

Without spending money trying to convince people who don't want a product that they need it anyway, companies would have a lower overhead and thus could sell for less. Of course, they would sell less overall, and only companies with legitimately useful products would thrive (with the occasional freak exception, of course), but I don't view either of those as necessarily a "bad" thing.

Wrong again. Companies wouldn't thrive, period. People would be completely in the dark about different options and choices, and would inevitably go to their inefficiently run local shop, which would almost always have a monopoly on whatever you're looking for. Products that can't be made locally would be done by big businesses, but at reduced inefficiency, and consequently everything would become a lot more expensive.

Advertising is one of the most important tools of modern business. If you deny businesses the right to advertise, we'll have far worse problems than those catchy jingles.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Ihlosi]

Its not like all ads are the same, and the reason for having them is not always the same. Sometimes it's as simple as "your life would be easier if you had one of these, but you've never seen them." That's the best case for advertising. In that case, it'll work well.

Well, kind of. More often than not this kind of advertising tries to sell stuff that's about as superfluous as a fifth wheel mounted on the roof of your car. My basement is full of junk that I bought when I still believed in this kind of ad. Maybe it's because an engineer - if there's something that will make my life easier, I'm quite likely to think of it first and then go looking whether there's an appropriate product on the market (which is usually the case :), if it weren't, I'd be running a couple of businesses by now).

Then there's the issue of ads for the purpose of adding choice. Sure, you may think that McDonalds is the best restaurant ever, but you don't want to go there all the time. See an ad for a new place, then you try it out.

That's a good point. However, the level of "intensity" to make your business known is very low. For me, even a mention in the yellow pages will do. You're running a restaurant that serves the type of food I'm interested in ? I'm probably going to find out by looking in the phone book.

Then there's the only kind of blanket advertising that actually has a chance to sway things for me - when it doesn't matter one whit.

Yep ... in that case, I'll probably go for the product that has the funnier ads. Not because it has anything to do with the product, but because it'll reward companies that make funny ads.

Of course, commercials that insult my intelligence by making me think that their as-good-as-everything-else products are in some way actually better without presenting any facts have the opposite effect, and make me less likely to buy.

And here's the scary thing: Even ads that blatantly insult the intelligence of the viewer work. That shows that most people don't realize just how stupid these ads are.

Re:I skip ads the right way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, people are much less likely to copy simulated violence because there are a thousand voices saying "No, that's wrong, you can't do that". These bratz dolls are more destructive because they're encouraging behaviour that isn't actively discouraged by other media, therefore more people are going to hear it and not hear anything else saying that it's wrong. It's a little like how alcohol poisons more people than arsenic - the solution is teaching kids that both are poisons, even if one doesn't seem to be.

Television?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought tvrss.net and Miro kind of made that irrelevant these days.

Buyers vs non-buyers

[Mike1024]

I always thought that ad skipping was a major benefit of DVRs. Do you skip all the ads? If you assume most people who pay for DVRs want to skip ads, one would expect DVR buyers to skip ads.

Their teenage children may not feel as strongly about adverts because children of DVR buyers, unlike DVR buyers themselves, have not self-selected for wanting to skip ads.

Jusy my $0.02.

Re:Buyers vs non-buyers

[aztektum]

Pretty much the first thing that popped into my head as well.

Younger people are more into popular culture, which is heavily marketed on tele. They have more of a propensity to stay in touch. "Older people" are going to be far more "set" in their way and less influenced by ads.

Hence, as the parent suggests, their desire to purchase a DVR

Damn right I skip all the ads!

[Anonymous Coward]

Without my DVR I wouldn't be able to watch TV!

Also, here in the UK, they seem to have started 'turning the volume up' on adverts to really grab your attention. That, the way they treat you as mindless consumers and the whole bullshit science of 'health food' and 'beauty' products make me really appreciate my DVR.

Scene releases = No ads

[TheMiddleRoad]

Thanks to scene releases, I get no standalone ads at all. Of course I do get the in-show ads, like the pushing of iTunes, Coke, and Fords, on American Idol.

Does the research differentiate

[joeflies]

between channel surfing and ad skipping?

Just based on personal observation, I notice most young people don't skip ads, but rather start watching another program. Their hyper short-term attention spans drive them to find new content instead of finishing the content they were originally watching. A teen will watch 10 minutes of 5 different shows in an hour, without having to use the skip button on the dvr at all.

Older people, with greater attention spans, want to continue the program they were watching, and thus use the technology to skip the ads in order to watch the entire program.

Re:Brand Loyalty

[Tuoqui]

Actually buying things is part of it. The other part is making you feel good about your purchases after the fact and maintaining that 'brand loyalty'... So if you're sitting on the couch watching the Hockey Game with your favorite beer in your hand and the commercial for it comes on, dont you feel better about buying your beer?

Re:How would they know?

[The Master Control P]

TiVo did a pretty impressive foot-in-mouth when, shortly after the Janet Jackson boob incident, they said it was the most rewound moment ever.

Ever notice how they're always rather insistent that you plug the dvr into a phone or ethernet? Dish charges $5/mo per dvr that isn't plugged in.

Not surprising

[rts008]

When I first started paying attention to TV, the commercials were between the half hour shows, or one commercial break (a word from our sponsors was the term used) halfway through an hour long show.
Then it went to commercials between the half hour shows, with one commercial halfway through at 15 minutes. An hour show would have the commercials between, and then every 20 minutes.
Then it went from two commercials between shows, and then one ever 15 minutes.
Then two every 15 minutes.
Then two every 10 minutes.
When I finally could not take anymore, and just quit watching TV altogether about 5 years ago, it was 3-4 commercials every 4-5 minutes. I tried recording a 30 minute show-pausing during the commercials, and ended up with 18 minutes of show...the other 12 minutes were commercials...over one third of the 30 minute show was commercials, not the show.

And those insidious 'infomercials'- 30 minute commercials WITH commercials...WTF?!?!?!

Enough already!
So yeah, I enjoyed being able to watch a show with only one or two SHORT commercial breaks, but I cannot enjoy the way it is now where the commercial breaks seem to be longer than the show breaks in between them.

To me it seems to have done a complete 180. It started as a way for advertisers to use a show to get a chance to show an ad or two and provide the entertainment draw to increase the audience to view those couple of ads.
Now the show is only an vehicle to drown you in commercials, the show be damned.

So now, with a DVR (with say a 200GB HDD), you're filling up over 70GB's of it with commercials, and during playback, you end up having to either hold on to the remote, or pick it up every 4 minutes to fast forward through the commercials.

No wonder most kids today have short attention spans, or just do something else and leave the TV playing in the background.

This sounds like a study done back in the early 1990's (given an $86,000 USD grant) to find out if people preferred warm or cold showers, and why. Duh!

It's simple...

[kylegordon]

Old folks know the value of time. Teens just love to waste time, until they realise how important it is.

moral of the story

[timmarhy]

make good ads that aren't annoying.

As a young person...

[Loplin]

As a young person(21) with DVR in my room, I have to say that I don't always skip the ads.

Most often I am watching tv live, and I can only fast forward through something that has either already been aired and recorded, or is ondemand. Fortunately, the DVR will record two channels at once; either the one or two channels I specify, or the last channel I was at and the current channel I am at. This lets me watch two channels back and forth.

Sometimes I have the tv on as background, or am only somewhat paying attention to it. The second most common reason for not skipping, for me(aside from watching live), is that I simply forget that I can fast forward! I frequently wake up from some kind of mindless daze in the middle of a commercial and realize... "oh, WTF am I doing?!", then start fast forwarding. This can even happen more than once or twice in the very same program.

I'm not young anymore!

[SeaFox]

The skew is particularly apparent among men: 50% of seniors skipping all the ads, but only 20% of teens do so.

Because the seniors realize they haven't got much time left to watch ads? [ducking]

When you pick a user name, think about the future.

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, lowest user ID, but I'll bet you're sad you called yourself "Pestilence".

On topic: I notice that almost every ad I see contains something dishonest or adversarial.

TV ads are a good source of information for me. They tell me what not to buy. If it's on TV, it's over-priced or unnecessary, with few exceptions. Otherwise the advertiser would not be able to pay, or be willing to pay, the huge cost of TV ads.

Re:When your time is running out...

[stormguard2099]

and that's why they are watching TV in the first place?

Not really

[tkrotchko]

"companies would have a lower overhead and thus could sell for less."

Unless there is perfect competition, the overhead a company has is only marginally related to the selling price.

If I can sell a widget for $100, that's what I'll ask for it, regardless of cost. If the market is buying my widgets as quickly as I can produce them, I would be stupid to reduce the price, even as efficiencies reduce costs to produce.

It's the same incorrect argument that people make that "shoplifting costs everyone more money". No, it doesn't. Shoplifting costs the store owner money, and is morally wrong. But the shop owner can't raise prices because the store next door (who has a more efficient loss prevention program) will undercut their prices.

Re:Not really

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It's the same incorrect argument that people make that "shoplifting costs everyone more money". No, it doesn't. Shoplifting costs the store owner money, and is morally wrong. But the shop owner can't raise prices because the store next door (who has a more efficient loss prevention program) will undercut their prices. And yet both stores are paying for the loss prevention program - and passing that cost on to the consumer. (That being said, I agree with what you're saying as relates to the topic at hand ...)

Re:Do you skip all the ads?

[dwater]

My ReplayTV 4000 skips adds automagically and still works after all these years (so I'm told - I let my old room-mates use it since I'm out of the country and last time I visited it was working just fine).

It isn't 100% reliable though, so I noticed that they will often skip back 5 seconds to see if it skipped forward too far ...

Re:Digital Video Recorder

[jedidiah]

No.

A PVR yields you commercial free television without having to BROADCAST YOURSELF TO THE MAN.

A bittorrent download while achieving possibly a technically better result comes with a big fat "SUE ME" sign.

It's amazing that this doesn't occur to anyone even after all of the thousands of RIAA lawsuits.

Why waste network bandwidth when you can get multiple 24/7 9GB/hr video feeds?