Fast Forward Affects...Or does it?

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Technology is helping yet hindering the world of advertisement. Digital Video Recorders are great for people who are watching TV but not great for advertisement companies. I am going to look into the pro's and con's of DVRs in respect to the advertising market and also look at what the future potentially holds (or does not hold) for this type of technology.

DVRs allow people to record a show that they want to watch, and watch it at a time convenient to their schedule. This also allows people to fast-forward through commercial breaks. Even though my interest is in advertisement and I plan on working in the advertisement industry when I am done with school, I have to admit I really do enjoy fast forwarding through the commercials. The consequence is that companies are spending a lot of money for their 30 second time slot and now a lot of people are able to fast forward right past it. Erik Du Plessis the chairman of Millward Brown South Africa, a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School and the author of The Advertised Mind (Kogan Page, 2008) wrote in the article Digital Video Recorders and Inadvertent Advertising Exposure, "It has been argued that the 30-second TV advertisement is dead because owners of digital video recorders fast-forward through advertisements." However he also states later on in his article that, "it is not easy to fast-forward through a commercial. In fact, advertising avoidance requires paying close attention to the television screen-- an act that may result in inadvertently paying more attention to the message." The chart below compares the ability for a viewer to recall  a commercial when paying attention to it while being fast forwarded verses in real time. According to the chart watching a commercial being fast forwarded does not have as big of an effect that I would have guessed. 

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There are times when I find commercials to be beneficial. I often use commercials as my excuse to watch a show that I want with the plan of muting the TV during the commercials and working on my assignment.

I was not surprised to see that thoughts are already underway in figuring out how to make changes so people are unable to by pass all the advertisements. In an 2010 article from the Los Angeles Times, the networks are aware of the trend of people skipping the advertisements and "ultimately are looking to video-on-demand to replace the DVR. In other words, picture a day when instead of recording that episode of "Two and a Half Men" on your DVR, you order it on video-on-demand. The only difference would be that on VOD the ads would be there and you wouldn't be able to skip them."

I am not worried about the advertisement industry coming up with a new way to get around the ability to bypass advertisements. Next thing we know the technology that we are use to and using today will have changed greatly.

Facebook Advertisement

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Advertisement can be found everywhere. It seems as if no matter where you go you are never able to escape ads. This is especially true with the largest social network out there, Facebook. Facebook uses many different ways to expose their members to advertisements. Harry Gold, founder and CEO of Overdrive, wrote the article, Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook, which explains the seven ways he found advertisement happening on Facebook. According to Gold, “If you want to immerse yourself on Facebook, the first and most important step is to set up a Facebook page.” He also mentioned to, “(take note that this is different from a Facebook profile, which represents an individual).” The next five things Facebook offers are Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Social Stories, Video Sponsored Stories, Box Ad Units, and Display Units which all fall under the umbrella of Facebook Ads. The last way of advertising according to Gold is through gift sponsorships. Gold also states that due to the fact of the ever-changing Internet he, “may be inadvertently omitting some because new features are being added. That is quite a bit of ways to advertise on only one website. 

I notice that there are a lot of ads on every page of Facebook. After a while I find that I do not notice the advertisements anymore which I think happens to most people. However the people at Facebook are aware of that and are always trying to come up with new and creative ways to get peoples’ attention when it comes to advertising. The two new features that are up and coming within Facebook are Engagement Ads and advertisements showing up in peoples’ news feed. Jeremiah Owyang, an Industry Analyst on Customer Strategy and Partner at Altimeter Group explains engagement advertisement in his blog posting What Facebook’s New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands as, “Rather than clicking on the ad and being whisked away to a branded microsite, these ads allow members to stay within the contained walls of Facebook and their social community." It is a great way for people to get more information about a product that catches their eye while on Facebook while not having to leave the Facebook site. The video  above explains this new type of advertisement very well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wHsfeWkXvM. If you did not think there were enough advertisements on Facebook, you are in luck. According to Shelly Palmer, the host of NBC Universal's Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, “Starting in January of 2012, sponsored stories will appear in your news feed on Facebook.  Advertisements will find their way in between your friend’s updates and there’s nothing you can do about it.” The act of blocking out the advertisements on Facebook is going to be a lot harder when the advertisements are intertwined with all your friends’ postings in your news feed. Facebook is doing a good job keeping up with how people are viewing advertisements and then adjusting the site accordingly.