TiVo Buster

June 7, 2007 — -- Whatever happened to the good old advertising jingle? You know, "Double your Pleasure, Double your Fun," "Betchya Can't Eat Just One?" "Taste the Rainbow," "Mmm, Mmm Good" and others that over the years have helped advertisers carve out a little piece of real estate for their products in all of our brains.

With the advent of DVR and TiVo, which make it even easier for TV fans to record their programs and fast-forward through the advertisements, this staple of TV viewing as we know it may quickly become a thing of the past.

"Advertisers are under pressure in many ways," said Columbia University business professor Bernd Schmitt. "First off, the new media is forcing them to use less and less traditional advertising … and there's more and more pressure in making these ads actually useful to consumers."

At the end of May, Nielsen Media Research released a portion of the data it gathered from a study of 1,750 DVR homes taken in the first week in May that shows just how little attention people now pay to the ads.

The study indicated that DVRs are most popular among 18- to 49-year-olds and that 42 percent of primetime TV was recorded and watched later rather than viewed live.

DVR households comprise only 17 percent of the nation's estimated 111.4 million TV homes, but within the first three days of a program's run, viwership of primetime shows increases 73 percent in a DVR household.

Trouble is, most of them don't watch the adds. The number of DVR viewers watching commercials only improves by 32 percent after the original program airs, as more than half of these viewers fast-forward or skip through the ads.

"The Nielsen ratings, the new ones, show us that the commercial break needs to be reconceptualized," said Schmitt. "They need to think outside of the box in terms of what it really means to advertise to consumers through various means."

Shrinking Ads, but Bigger Sponsorships?

All the TV networks, from ABC to MTV, admit they are working on new ways to keep people from tuning out or changing the channel. But how exactly are the networks and their advertisers transforming their advertising strategies? And how will these new formats affect the average TV viewer?

Schmitt expects eventually you'll no longer see short commericals packed into a five-minute commercial break that are an obvious departure from your favorite drama or comedy. Rather, a single ad could potentially last the entire commercial break and be a continuation of the program's story line, integrating the actors into the commercial's message.

"In the old model, you have this sort of commercial break period, and you have the program and the two have nothing to do with each other," said Schmitt.

He explained that the new format "brings the two together" with a "smooth transition from the program into the commercial or vise versa." Also, Schmitt pointed out that the integration of commercials into TV programs opened the medium of advertisements up to a whole new realm of possibilities.

"It might be the sponsor of the commercial break [that] sponsors the program or that certain people get the characters who appear in the show to also appear in the commercial and so on, so there are various options. But the big picture is to eliminate that arbitrary boundary between 'this piece is the program' and 'this piece is the commercial,'" he said.

The changes are already cropping up in some programs -- KFC decided to take advantage of the DVR technology for one of its ads and offered viewers a coupon for free food that could only be seen by scrolling through the clip, thus inciting people to stick around during commercials.

And, this past winter "American Idol" featured Ford Motor Company ads during the Fox broadcast with "Idol" contestants singing in music videos that advertised Ford automobiles.

"The whole goal here is to blur the line between content and advertising message," said Hank Close, president of ad sales at MTV Networks.

"In 1968 you could reach 90 percent of America with three commercials. Today you would need to run 131," said Andrew Springate, the vice president of marketing for Dr. Pepper, in an interview with ABC News. "It's a much more divergent marketplace, and we spend a lot of time trying to find new ways to connect."

Dr. Pepper is doing that with a mini-reality show of its own that can be seen at its Web site (www.drpepperbubble.com) or on MTV. The show, "Band in a Bubble," features an up-and-coming band locked in a room as it tries to produce a record in just 20 days.

"As marketers today, you've really got to look for new ways to connect with your users and consumers and fans," Springate said. "[Band in a Bubble] really extends from retail partner to strong media partner, like Viacom and MTV, all the way through relevant music partners, like Sony, and then the band itself, Cartel. So we think we actually will have a broader reach by connecting in different places than we normally do in a grocery store."

Although recent innovations in advertising are changing the way people watch TV, in the end, they are not changing the ultimate goal of the commercial.

"An advertisement always needs to be both creative, attention getting and innovative, and needs to make money for the advertisement in terms of sales," said Schmitt. "Right now, it seems to me, advertisers really need a lot of creativity but not in the traditional sense. How can you be creative with the new media and deal with the fact that there may no longer be this clear separation between the commercial break and the program itself? We will know, through the new Nielsen ratings, whether these new formats are successful and if they will, ultimately, make money."