Gareth over a Brand New pointed to a recent NY times article on researchers at NBC trying to figure out how to optimize a TV advertisement for fast-forwarding on a DVR?
Call me crazy, but I think the train has left the station on this one. If people are fast-forwarding through the ads, that's indicative of a pretty strong intent to not want to watch them. Anything you are actively trying to avoid is bound to have its value reduced by orders of magnitude, even if, as the article suggests, there is some indication of an emotional reaction to certain images (typically if they are familiar, i.e. seen the ad before).
Now I love Gareth's blog (he is an uber smart guy), but I don't agree that this type of research needs to be regarded as anything other than a footnote to the whole DVR issue. And it certainly shouldn't encourage agencies to optimize ads for fast-forwarding. The consumer is showing a clear intent, let's try and not circumvent that. They won't be happy.
Of course, it's easy to criticize NBC, it's hard to come up with a viable solution to the problem. They are, after all, trying to protect their business. But this is not the way to go about it. As I talked about in the post below, this is an example of measuring the wrong thing.
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