DVR's are now good for advertisers
Nielsen began tracing DVR usage back in 2006. More and more people are using DVR’s. Nearly 22% of homes have them. The rise in usage can be contributed to the increased sales of HD televisions because of the nearing deadline to go digital. Most HD televisions now come with DVR capabilities. Nielsen’s research segments users into three categories: heavy shifters, medium shifters, and light shifters. This is in reference to how often they are watching a program at a time it wasn’t actually aired. Nielson found that middle-income women are the heaviest time-shifters. In contrast, the types of people who don’t watch too much TV are high-income earners who don’t have time for it. These light viewers are doing 10% of their TV viewing off of programs they have recorded on their DVR’s. When the DVR technology first came out it was projected that commercial viewing would decrease. The research shows that it didn’t have as much of an impact as expected. The figures have remained stable because heavy TV views are watching more than before, and light TV viewers have the opportunity to actually increase their view time. They can now watch shows at their convenience.
For people who watch a lot of TV, advertising can become clutter and not impact them as much because they see a lot of it. With light viewers watching more and more TV, thanks to DVR’s, this opens up a new door for marketers to reach a target that wasn’t easily reached before. I feel that Nielson’s findings are just what advertisers have been waiting to hear. It was first seen that DVR’s were going to damage the advertising industry, but with these new findings and the ability to reach a whole new demographic, it’s not as bad as first thought.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=125113
posted by Mandy Mazzeo @ 1:04 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
As advertisers I think it is important for us to stay familiar with these new kinds of mediums that we have available to us. While yes DVRs can seem like a fatal blow for our industry, I think that it just means we have to be a bit more creative in how we use them. We have one in our house and I have already seen advertisements being placed in single thirty second spots about mid way through the show and rarely do we take the time to fast forward them. There’s a silver lining to every cloud and I think that changes at all in this case.
I have actually read quite a few articles on studies that were done that show that most DVR owners still watch the commercials even though they can skip them. A lot of times it is just out of habit, but also the first and last commercials are almost always partially viewed. There was also an article in newsweek that stated how even though people are still fast forwarding through commercials they are still being exposed to the brand as it is flashing in front of them. This might lead to longer shots of the logo or product being placed into commercial to allow the DVR owwners to see it as they fast forward.
However, new technologies like these also allow for advertisers to be more creative. This obviously gives more of an incentive to place promotions in the shows themselves. This can be done by having characters either consuming or talking about your product, or by sponsoring shows or parts of shows and having a quick promotion with a visible logo for a period of time.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home