[IP] TiVo sells your fast-forward button to advertisers
Begin forwarded message:
From: Larry Tesler <tesler@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 18, 2004 11:47:34 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: TiVo sells your fast-forward button to advertisers
Dave,
For IP.
I wonder if anyone has done a study of TiVo viewers' impressions from
commercial messages.
If a DVR owner uses a DVR "ad skip" button with perfect skill, it skips
30 seconds at a time, and he doesn't see much in the way of commercial
messages. On ReplayTV, as I understand it, the ad skip button is
standard. On TiVo, it is not.
On TiVo, there is a way to reprogram a certain standard button to skip
30 seconds. But doing so makes you give up what I have found to be two
essential functions: going directly to the beginning or end of a show,
and accelerating rewinds and fast forwards.
So, with my TiVo, when the commercials come on, I fast forward. If an
ad looks amusing or funny, and I haven't watched it before, I often go
back and view it. I am fascinated by well-designed ads and find them
entertaining to see once. I may never watch that ad at normal speed
again. But, because I have chosen to watch it, and because it is not
competing for a place in my memory with numerous other commercials that
I didn't watch at normal speed, I think its message is more likely to
stick.
Even when I fast forward through a commercial, I would conjecture that
my "impression" of it is not much less than that of a viewer with no
DVR. Maybe more. Before I had a TiVo, when an ad came on, I would
usually mute the sound, look away, and think. Or talk with a companion.
Or leave the room for a carefully timed break. When fast-forwarding a
TiVo, I have to hold down a button and glue my eyes to the screen to
avoid going too far. I can't hear the ads. But I can't help but see the
images. Sometimes, these images are enough to get the message in my
head, especially if it is one of those ads that I have watched at
normal speed once.
I can't imagine that a banner ad or popup message with no entertainment
value would work better than that.
But maybe it's just me.
Larry
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