Oh, Good! A Commercial!
EmailFollow this logic: A television show, even one you like, becomes more enjoyable if…it’s interrupted by commercials. It doesn’t matter what the commercials are, or whether they’re any good — just the fact of the interruption makes the show seem better. This is the argument put forth by Leif Nelson, Tom Meyvis and Jeff Galak, in the Journal of Consumer Research. The abstract of their paper is HERE. (The rest of the paper is by subscription only.) The key to their thesis is a psychological pattern called "adaptation," the notion that people get bored with anything — even something they like — and a break from it revives their pleasure. "Although consumers do not foresee it, their enjoyment diminishes over time. Commercial interruptions can disrupt this adaptation process and restore the intensity of consumers’ enjoyment," the authors write. Nelson is a professor of marketing at the University of California, San Diego; Meyvis and Galak are at NYU’s Stern School of Business. To test their thesis, the researchers recruited NYU undergraduates and had them watch a 1981 episode of the old sitcom "Taxi." (Why "Taxi?" Because today’s college students are too young to remember it when it first aired.) The volunteers who saw it with commercials — the inane stuff that runs when a show is in syndication — reported that they liked it a lot more than those who saw it with the breaks edited out. Sean Gregory, over at Time, has some fun with this. Doesn’t it sound like great P.R., after all, for beleagured advertisers? Not so fast, says Nelson: "The strong feeling people have against commercials is truly ubiquitous. It swamps everything."
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Hhhmm. . . I don’t know much about the theory behind ‘adaptation’, but does this also suggest that movies would be made more enjoyable if they had commercial interruptions? Years ago, movies had intermissions. So, may be the idea is not that far-fetched. What about the use of DVR’s? Does fast-forwarding through the commercials of your favorite program make it less enjoyable? Seems counter-intuitive to me.
Posted by: Jim | February 27, 2009, 1:57 pm 1:57 pm
Back in the early days of television, the commercials had one purpose for the viewer: to allow the viewer to get a snack from the kitchen, use the bathroom, etc. The commercials were hardly noticed, unless they were unusually entertaining. Gradually, commercials became the butt of many jokes and have since descended into the obtrusive, pandering interruptions that they currently are. It seems strange to have them analyzed.
Posted by: andyr | February 27, 2009, 4:23 pm 4:23 pm
I wonder if this “adaptation” is in any way brought about BECAUSE of commercials (maybe not the other way around). In a society where everything is IN YOUR FACE! NOW! NOW! NOW! maybe our boredom is a direct result of overstimulation. And maybe what is being viewed as “getting bored” of a sitcom is related to the quality of the sitcom itself and not the commercials. When they end something with a mildly interesting cliffhanger, whether the show is any good or not, you feel obligated to keep watching it just to see what happens. Then five minutes after the commercials that help you forget what you were watching and why you’re still watching it, they do it again. I think this study seems just a little flawed and reminds me of when Guy Montag (in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury) is on the bus trying to think and all he can think of is the song being blasted on the loudspeakers because it’s so damn catchy and impossible to block out.
Posted by: inner | February 27, 2009, 6:44 pm 6:44 pm
What I want to know is did these kids watch the commercials that originally aired with the show or the standard tripe on TV today. I’ll bet it was the original commercials and given their dated nature, I’ll be these commercials were almost as entertaining/a novelty as the show itself. Second, how many people participated in this study and for how long and what was the testing done to ensure outside bias? Quite frankly, I know plenty of people that disliked “Taxi” just because they didn’t care much for the show, not because they saw it without commercial breaks. A little more info please.
Posted by: ekoja | February 27, 2009, 7:48 pm 7:48 pm
Ridiculous! I can’t even watch regular television because the number of commercials is so frustrating!
Posted by: Cowgirl | February 27, 2009, 10:08 pm 10:08 pm
Message from Ned Potter–
Ekoja, those are fair questions. The information is in the links, but I’ll post some here:
There were 87 volunteers; divided about equally into two groups watching the show with and without commercials.
They had been asked, as a screening question, whether they had been watchers of “Taxi,” and whether they had a prior impression of it.
The recording they watched was of a 1981 episode, replayed in syndication on a local New York station in 2005. So the commercials were principally for modern-day local advertisers.
Posted by: Ned Potter | February 28, 2009, 11:14 am 11:14 am
But WAIT! There’s MORE!
Posted by: Amazing_G | February 28, 2009, 5:53 pm 5:53 pm
Personally I like commercials, a lot are quite entertaining. What’s annoying is the same commercial over and over.
Posted by: Amazing_G | February 28, 2009, 5:55 pm 5:55 pm
Re: “This is the argument put forth by Leif Nelson, Tom Meyvis and Jeff Galak, in the Journal of Consumer Research.”
And the networks paid them big bucks to say that I’ll wager.
A break BETWEEN shows OK, but in the middle? That’s why I stopped watching TV in the first place. Waste 30 minutes to see a 30 minute show? It’s not worth the time.
Posted by: Quietman | March 1, 2009, 2:06 am 2:06 am
Jim
LONG movies had intermissions. Most did not. Theatres had an intermission between showings to give people time to exit and enter. (They were very large buildings back then as well).
Posted by: Quietman | March 1, 2009, 2:09 am 2:09 am
The other thing was the FCC requirement for station identification. Originally that is when they had A (as in one) commercial per break. I guess I’m showing my age.
Posted by: Quietman | March 1, 2009, 2:13 am 2:13 am
Thanks Ned. That helps. Always keep in mind folks that these results could be read a couple of different ways. All the test showed was that people rated the show higher when it came with commercials. Either this could mean that commercials due to their lame nature make content more interesting than it actually is or perhaps commercials help audiences with short attention spans regain interest in shows by breaking them up some or perhaps some combination of the above.
Posted by: ekoja22 | March 1, 2009, 6:44 am 6:44 am
It’s not the commercials – it’s the break in intensity. Those with TIVO or DVRs can skip over the commercials and enjoy the program even more than those who are forced to sit through them or turn off the television. No, people don’t enjoy watching commercials – but I guess no one is going to do a scientific study on that.
Posted by: Kaelinda | March 1, 2009, 7:16 am 7:16 am
The most significant factor that this study misses, I think, is that the commercials are often much more entertaining than the programs themselves. I’d much rather watch an amusing commercial (andt there ARE such things out there!) than most of the drivel that passes itself off as prime-time network programming. (And, sorry, Ned, that includes ABC prime-time programming as well!)
Posted by: chuck | March 1, 2009, 1:34 pm 1:34 pm
Adaptation = bathroom break.
Adaptation does not = I love commericals
Bathroom break = commericals are okay
Not Okay = endless commericals
Click! = turning off tv with endless commericals
Posted by: Miguel Gallegos | March 1, 2009, 2:11 pm 2:11 pm
What an idiotic study. TIVO and DVR proves this guy is wrong. That is why product placement is making a big comeback. People skip commercials. I haven’t watched a commercial since I got my DVR years ago. If I happen to catch a show coming on I want to watch, I’ll start taping it and watch an episode of the Simpson’s (I always have at least one saved) and then go back and watch whatever it is I started taping, simply to avoid commercials. advertisers need to find a different way to get their message across. At least, to me they do. Commercials are going the way of the Dodo, no matter what this “study” says.
Posted by: snooch | March 1, 2009, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
WOW! It’s kinda hard to think that we ENJOY commercials. I mean, aren’t we happy when we tune into a radio station that claims it has COMMERCIAL FREE MUSIC! In tech-terms, it’s basically that over the years, we’ve found commercials to be a waste of time & money, and also because they generate a lot of gaps in our favorite TV shows, and also less time for them to be on the air. Take Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for example. It’s a good show for the whole family. Now, if we cut all or even a small portion of the commercials out, there’s more time for it to be on the air. And please don’t give me this jibberish about “good” commercials. Don’t treat me like I’m a total idiot. I know plenty of physcology. But good article, anyway
Posted by: jrEinstein411 | March 1, 2009, 2:43 pm 2:43 pm
Personally we don’t watch commercials, we believe that either the Aztecs or the Egyptions sattilites were responsible for the extinction of the Dinosaurs,not ASTEROIDS!!
Posted by: radar | March 2, 2009, 3:27 am 3:27 am
They MUST be nuts!! I’d pay extra to never see another commerical. It iritates me that for an our program – there is actual about 20 minutes of show and 40 minutes of commerical. I change the change to find something else while the commerical is on.
Posted by: Jan | March 2, 2009, 12:32 pm 12:32 pm
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
Posted by: Sarah | March 3, 2009, 8:31 am 8:31 am
Note from Ned–
Why, thank you, Sarah. It’s very kind of you to say that.
One point to add: the study, as I understand it, took it as a given that the test subjects would not like the commercials. It was the interruption that was interesting to them. Though they didn’t get into this, I would bet the interruption would affect people’s “adaptation” rate, even if they have DVRs and zap the commercials.
Posted by: Ned Potter | March 3, 2009, 10:10 am 10:10 am
Ned
There is some truth in that. I like TIVO for that reason. If the show has commercials I can zip past on 3x but in a long movie I can pause it for a break when I wan;t to.
What annoyed me was when cable and satellite came out, “cable only” shows were commercial free. That is what we were paying for – commercial free TV.
Now all channels have commercials so I don’t watch TV anymore. The one or two shows I like air once a week so I either TIVO them or watch them on-line.
Posted by: Quietman | March 4, 2009, 2:05 pm 2:05 pm