Some data released last week from Tivo shows just how challenging it is to get attention.
For a show like Mad Men,
85% of viewing is timeshifted and 83% of the ads are viewed on fast forward. This presents planners and buyers with an interesting challenge, some of the best loved and top rated shows, while looking attractive from an audience basis, don't convert too well when it comes to ad viewing. This is probably common sense, if you've got the chance to get back to the program you are really enjoying as fast as possible, why are you going to let something get in the way. Perhaps we should be surprised that the numbers aren't higher; 34% of Daily Show viewers on Tivo don't fast forward through the ads.
Posted by Ed Cotton
A new pilot
study from
POPAI looks at how UK shoppers engage in retail marketing at
Morrisons and
ASDA/Wal-Mart stores.
It reveals just how challenging the battle for consumer attention has become.
"534 shoppers enter the store per hour; shoppers are exposed to 1.6
pieces of marketing materials per second as they navigate the stores;
shoppers' eyes are drawn to 17.8 percent of the marketing materials..."Over 80% of materials get ignored.
The battle for attention is real.
Posted by Ed Cotton
Having recently acquired a personal video recorder, I find myself using the time-shift facility when watching commercial TV.
ADVERTISEMENT ( a web advertisment appeared here!!)
I
start watching a programme around 15 minutes after it has commenced
broadcasting - by doing this, I am able to fast forward through the
adverts. Am I breaking my "contract" with the broadcaster by not
watching its adverts, and do I miss out on some products that might be
of value to me?
Paul, Dorset
Dear Paul,
If everybody
did as you do, advertisers would give up, and broadcasters would have
to find a new source of income. That need not concern you, however. If
you time-shift and others do not, no harm is done. And if they all
time-shift, you'd be a fool to do otherwise, wouldn't you?
The
more pertinent question is whether these adverts are worth your time.
If you earn £40,000 a year, then you make £5 in the time it takes you
to watch 15 minutes of advertising. This is a rough guide to the
opportunity cost of your time.
If the adverts are enjoyable or
informative, perhaps that is a price worth paying, but it seems
unlikely. While an advertisement in the Financial Times might alert you
to a sophisticated product, mainstream television adverts are more
likely to remind you that actors can be paid to hold fizzy drinks, or
that when a car is filmed from a helicopter and driven by a stuntman
along a remote mountain road, it looks rather cool.
I recommend,
then, that you watch a few advertising breaks while keeping a running
tally: the cost of time spent watching adverts versus your estimate of
the benefits thus derived. I suspect you will find that time shifted is
time saved.
According to a
report in the
New Scientist magazine, researchers at
HP Labs calculated that the average story posted onto the front page of the news site
Digg, has a life expectancy of 69 minutes.
Although Digg isn't yet the mass market place of attention, it indicates that in an over abundant world, attention is fleeting at best.
It demonstrates just how hard it is to get noticed and even if you manage it, attention quickly wanes.
These days there are two things brands need to do:
1. Get noticed
2. Sustain attention
Both things are getting tougher and tougher to achieve, but as we keep saying, it's all about doing more and experimenting more.
Articles for tag attention (4 total).
