Youngsters Skip DVR Ads Less Than Seniors 460
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?"
Brand Loyalty (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do you skip all the ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
Background (Score:3, Interesting)
Contrast this with TV or movies which require a much more concentrated effort to enjoy. While there are certainly some TV shows which you can tune out for half an hour and not miss anything, in general watching the boobtube means imposing a restriction on your activities for that time period. Because of this, the value of TV and visual media is perceived higher than music.
With the advent of on-demand television/movies, the value of TV and movies drops considerably lower. While still higher than zero due to the inability to produce shows of any quality immediately (as would be possible with music throughhumming to yourself or singing in the shower), the value is lower due to the loss of time restriction. Whereas you would have to assign a timeslot to watch TV, now you can pick it up any time, even to the extent that video playback was just background noise.
What's more, once viewers stop paying attention to anything they aren't really interested in, advertisers are going to start clamoring for both more technical restrictions built into the device and more in-line advertising (through advertisement bars and in-show placements).
The future is going to suck for TV.
Re:Does the research differentiate (Score:5, Interesting)
Say you're watching a show and an ad comes on, you've got a good three minutes, at least, before your show comes back. So you find something else good to watch until it goes to commercial. Then you switch back, but wait, show #1 is still on commercial, find show #3. When it goes to commercial #1 is probably back, if not maybe number #2. The way shows repeat themselves over and over again and the increasing length of commercial breaks means you can just about watch two or three shows at a time if you're intent on doing so.
Finding three good shows to skip between, that's the challenge. I can rarely find one, which may explain why catching 50 minutes of one show or 10 minutes of five different ones all comes out about the same in the end.
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would actually go beyond what you said--you said that for instance, corporate sponsorship of stadiums is a new thing. Maybe corporate, but in years past it would have been an individual. Think of in the US have many buildings (universities, etc) are named after people who gave money to build them--Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.
Going back even farther in history, Pompeii gives countless examples of graffiti that showed politics then was no different than today--slanderous and brutal! Same for advertisements, they were everywhere.
Re:Do you skip all the ads? (Score:1, Interesting)
Non-DVR owner (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was a kid today, I wouldn't see the point in TV at all. It's all just ads. When I was younger, there were a handful of ads that, even back then, I used as a convenient break in my programs to use the bathroom, make a drink etc. But now there's nothing of interest to them, and if they manually skipped them all they'd never get anything done. They are actually doing what the TV companies would fear most - they are learning to completely ignore ads in all media because they are saturated with them from an early age in all media. That's a good skill for them to have, I say. Thus, they can leave them playing and it makes little difference.
Myself and my wife gave up on broadcast TV about five years ago. By that I mean that the TV is now just a display device - we watch DVD's (and even still videos) and we play games on it all the time. But that's pretty much it. We have a satellite subscription on the lowest paid rate because then we get the "old programs" channels and things like Discovery but we're even considering giving that up because it's no longer of much value to us. We watch a "new" program about once a year, if that. But if I stumble across a favourite, I'll watch it if I'm in the mood.
The chances are that we only watch maybe one or two half-hour programs a night now and only about three or four nights a week unless we are working hard. That's WAY down on our previous rates. Most of the programs we do watch are re-runs that we know we are going to enjoy (although they are being slowly ruined by being edited for broadcasting during the day and then repeated with those same edits during the evening - so we "jar" on the gaps because we know the programs well enough to know something "naughty" was cut out, even though it's way past most people's bedtime). We have the remote on hand to mute all the adverts (because of the "let's raise advert volume levels" stupidity) and wait for the channel banner until we turn it back on. In the gap, we read, make phonecalls or prepare food. A lot of the time we just switch the thing off or, if our interest was peaked by a favourite program being on but it being yet another repeat of that episode we've watched a thousand times, what we will do is dig out our "complete set" DVD and choose a better episode of the same series.
Broadcast TV is slowly dying under the weight of the ads, for which the good programming has given way - it has been for years. They are poor quality (especially the ones that seem US-based when broadcast to a UK audience - the Cillit Bang man really needs a volume-reduction operation and the "US advert with dubbed fake UK voices" is just too grating when it's every other advert), uninteresting, not well targetted, over-used, over-frequent, and too forced. And the programs that they are replacing are becoming more like adverts every day. Even the bloody movies are adverts now (the bit in "I Robot" about the trainers really annoyed me in an otherwise very enjoyable film).
I can remember a time when I was younger, when a Saturday night was a non-stop run of fantastic programs, some old, some new and some which even then were 20-year-old repeats but it didn't show that badly - that made you stay in front of the TV all evening. The example that my wife likes to use is Tony Hancock (although we're both far too young to remember it the first time around, that's our sort of humour and type of era/program
Another way to look at it. (Score:3, Interesting)
watching 2 hours of TV a day (avaraged, could be light for some, heavy for others)
Guesstimating 10 minutes per hour of commercials
You are now up to 20 minutes per day on commercials
Or 7300 minutes per year
Or over a 30 year period of watching Ads (again, some may be hitting 60 years+ of TV, 30 just seemed to be good round number)
So, 30 years of ads means you'll have potentially wasted (perspective based) 3650 hours on ads.
Or to put it another way, you would have to work 2 years (40 hr work week - 10 holidays) to make up for that time.
I (mostly) skip TV altogether. (Score:3, Interesting)
I am simply not going to sit there for 5 minutes listening to inane jingles advertising tampons, crap loans, household cleaning products and cars.
When I (rarely) watch a DVD then they've either been ad stripped by the uploader
If I'm interested in buying something I go to great lengths to find out about the available products before I make an informed choice as to what I want to buy.
Sorry I'm just not interested in advertising.
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ads work on the majority. On me, they usually have the opposite effect (not going to buy stuff that's advertised in particularly annoying/stupid/psychologically exploitive ways).
Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society.
Ads take away the consumers freedom to chose the better product (yes - ads _work_ that way on many people. There are subconscious effects that are very, very hard to suppress. Most people can't do this at all, which is one of the reasons why ads work so well), shifting the focus on the product that is marketed best. Quite possibly, ads are what turns customers into consumers.
If you came up with a formula for a soda that tastes better than the established alternatives while being healthier, do you think it'd fly off the shelves ? Nope. It's not Coke or Pepsi. You'd first have to fight a marketing battle against companies whose marketing budget is probably a few orders of magnitude larger than what your company is worth. And they'd fight your better product with tooth and claw - not by making their products better, but by stepping up their marketing efforts.
Re:Buyers vs non-buyers (Score:2, Interesting)
Definitely against ads, but not in the majority (Score:3, Interesting)
But when thinking more about it, the part I am actually not sure that I get anymore is that we are paying almost $800 a year for the privilege to watch advertising-sponsored shows. We actually are paying to have the chance to watch ads.... Increasingly, this part doesn't make much sense to me, as it was a business model that was clearly designed for over-the-air free viewing.
All the same, in observing my family's viewing patterns, I have noticed that the younger ones tend to accept the advertising content much more naturally, almost as if it was an integral part of the programming. They also clearly identify the cutting-edge bits in ads which incorporate mind-blowing special effects, or revel in their witty humor, and to them it rates just as high as the programs themselves.
As for the real benefits of DVR's, they seem to still clearly be first and foremost their time-shifting abilities. When they get home after work or school, many people are just too passive or exhausted to bother dealing with hitting the 'Forward' button repeatedly.
In the end, just like vegans, there is a minority of people out there who are violently and religiously against any ads; but the huge majority doesn't care at all, it's just a minor inconvenience to them, and this further carries over into how they watch the DVR recordings they've made.
I would find it most interesting to know what these patterns of ad skipping become when it's automated, as with Myth TV.
As an aside, I would also love to have the option of watching HD programming in real time with no ads whatsoever. How much would this cost? Why isn't it widely offered yet?
Z.
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not an either/or situation. It's totally feasible to have a free capitalistic society without unregulated advertising. In fact, unregulated advertising hurts capitalism.
A central pillar of capitalism (from Adam Smith's original work) is that people buy things they need or desire. If people are tricked into buying things they don't need or desire (whether via deception, lies, force or just clever advertising), then classical capitalist theory breaks down and the efficiency which makes capitalism great, goes out the window!
DVR? Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a tempting logical leap to make, but I suspect this assumption is at least partly false.
There are two kinds of advertising: ads that inform, and ads that create brand-awareness. TV and radio spots for Rogaine or a 3-day sale at your local hardware store are informative - they give you information about something you might want or need. Billboards with the Coca Cola or McDonalds logo or radio jingles with infectious memes (much more rare now than in the past, I notice) do not inform, they simply keep the brand in the public consciousness - and they serve as a sort of peacock's tail: they're a flashy, expensive demonstration that the company is thriving enough to throw money away on extravagances, which builds brand confidence.
The extent to which either of these techniques really work is highly debatable. The strongest evidence that they DO work comes from ... wait for it ... studies funded by the media, which lives or dies by ad revenue.
How often do you rush out to buy something because you learn about it in a TV ad? Do you ever really go to Carls Jr. for a burger because you glimpsed their $50 million ad campaign a few times? Would you actually buy less Diet Coke if they didn't have $500 million worth of billboard advertisement everywhere?
Personally, I suspect most advertising barely works at all. But thank goodness TV has convinced companies it does, otherwise we'd have no Battlestar Galactica!
this is not surprising because ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Younger viewers are the prized age demographic in advertising circles. Why?
the theory is that the younger viewers haven't established "brand" preference for most products - and therefore can be more easily convinced to try a different/new brand older viewers probably have made their "brand" choices and won't consider changing unless something drastic happens
this is why beer commercials are geared at people too young to drink and also why the tobacco industry got into so much trouble
my guess is that "young male" viewers are simply more open to the "advertising message" and aren't as annoyed by them (i.e. younger viewers see them as "information" not "advertising") and therefore (slightly) less likely to skip them
this study confirms what marketers already knew - targeting "younger" viewers is more profitable than targeting "older" viewers (obviously there is for "most products" - I don't know what age groups the AARP targets with their adds - but it probably isn't 15 year olds or 90 year olds...)
...and if I have DVRed something with commercials I turn on the "commercial auto skip" but I also fast forwarded through commercials with by VCR way back when...
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:3, Interesting)
And they'd fight your better product with tooth and claw - not by making their products better, but by stepping up their marketing efforts.
Well, let me talk about the kinds of advertising that works on me - none of which do any of the things you're talking about.
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.
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.
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. I don't really care what kind of toothpaste I buy. From my experience, they're all cheap and they all work about the same. I'd be slightly more inclined to buy from the company that makes the funniest commercial. The Bruce Campbell ads for Old Spice are hilarious. Pretty much all deodorants work for me (until the bacteria living in my skin get used to them), so I'm more than happy to give Old Spice a go.
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.
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:4, Interesting)
Manners demand that I preface the following by saying that I am not trying to brag, I am trying to provide some bona fides. I'm a smart guy with a strong engineer's mind. I read a newspaper, watch a television news program, and browse dozens of web feeds every day. My library contains more than a thousand volumes. I spend more time than the average person on introspection and self-analysis. Additionally, I'm extremely stubborn. The surest way to get me to not do something is to try to browbeat me into doing it.
Like many of you, I didn't think advertising worked on me. Yet a couple of weeks ago I inexplicably found myself spending half an hour at marines.com looking into enlistment. That the Marines are heavily advertised during adult swim, which I often have on while coding, can't be a coincidence.
World-class advertisers are very good at what they do. They literally have it down to a science. Even if you can use your intellect to protect yourself from the overt message, there's still the more subtle psychological cues and even sheer repetition if nothing else works. It wasn't that long ago the Marines couldn't get enough recruits. The AP reported this week that they've met 142% of their recruiting goal [google.com] for April. That's not likely to be a coincidence either.
Re:what is this television? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm really surprised Verizon hasn't fixed this problem by now. AFAIK, the program guide is basically just an HTTP client with all the content stored off-site. The only obvious reason why it should take two minutes to get a listing is if the servers are horribly overloaded.
Why they don't rsync the data to the STB once an hour and run it locally escapes me.
There should never be waits as long as I've had using the FiOS program guide.
MPEG punishes you more than you think. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's worse than that. Every time there is a small incremental change to a scene, MPEG records only the changes--very efficient. But when there is a screen wipe (every pixel changes) a new entire 'reference frame' must be added (which is much bigger than just incremental changes).
So if there are more camera changes, the resulting MPEG file is larger. So even though commercials take only one third of the TIME, they take much, much more of the FILE SIZE. It is likely your 200GB has 70GB of show and 130GB of commercials.
Movie trailers are the worst. I saw a 30 second commercial with 75 separate scenes (with 75 full wipes)! Why do kids have such sort attention spans? Could it be that they see hours and hours of this input every day, where the average scene duration is 0.4 seconds.
Re:I skip ads the right way... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Non-DVR owner (Score:3, Interesting)
As for ads in books, that used to be done in the 80's. If it was a paperback of a movie, there would be four or five glossy cardstock pages in the middle with photos, sometimes also did that with paperback history books as well. And a few of the really cheap books like National Enquirer UFO report (same kind of publishing "quality" as porno novels) would have ciggie ads in the middle. Not sure why this sort of thing stopped happening but I'm not complaining.
I agree with you 100% that the greedheads are driving people to the video on demand model. People are sick of ads and just want to get their shows without the cruft. The biggest drawback is they don't have the price model set properly. They're still charging too much per episode, the same as the ebook publishers do. I'm not paying no goddamn full hardback price for a PDF! Same goes for Daily Show or Colbert Report.
What's funny is I have an Xbox 360 and it's my only HDTV media player. I don't have blue-ray or hddvd. I think the rentals from Microsoft are too expensive and too restrictive (basically $5 for 24 hours of unlimited use) but I've been planning on trying it out at least once when the right movie's come out. Oddly enough, they have Surf Nazis Must Die but not Cloverfield or the Mist. I paid full price to see those two in the theater, plan on getting the DVD's, but would still pay the $5 to see how they compare in 1080i quality.