I'm not deaf, you know. Yet.

Earlier this week, unable to locate the remote commander for the PVR, I found myself exposed, unusually, to some advertising; an experience that reminded me of Ivor Hussein.

In the dim and distant past (1995) Ivor, who was the then researcher in the then media department of the then Lowe Howard-Spink, conducted a delightfully elegant analysis of the BARB panel, in order to quantify a phenomenon we’d observed qualitatively, that of Ad Avoidance – the tendency of some people to flip channels during the commercial breaks.

Ivor’s analysis involved examining the viewing patterns of each of the c.5000 members of the panel over a five year period. For each person, he quantified the total number of minutes of commercial television watched and then established the proportion that was to the commercials themselves. He then compared each panel member’s ratio with the ratio that had actually been broadcast and was thus able to classify people in accordance with how much advertising they were avoiding.

Remember this was back in the days of (mostly) only 4 channels and incomplete remote penetration but even then, the analysis revealed that only a third of the population were not engaging in some form of avoidance behaviour. At the other end of the spectrum, a third of the population were classified as Extreme Ad Avoiders, avoiding, on average, 29% of the commercials they ought to have been exposed to.

(Incidentally, Ivor now works as a freelance consultant, so anyone wanting similarly elegant analysis should contact him here i.hussein@btinternet.com.)

One would clearly expect the incidence and extent of avoidance to have multiplied considerably since 1995, with the increase in the number of channels, penetration of remotes, PVR’s, entertainment choices, clutter, etc on the one hand and decline in ad liking (see ‘Are we doomed?’ post below) on the other. But there might be another factor at work too.

EXACTLY HOW LOUD DO THE COMMERCIALS NEED TO BE?

Surely the response of any normal human being to having Michael Winner entreat them to “Calm down, dear” at 135dB, is to do the opposite and begin to frantically scrabble amongst the half empty beer cans, copies of the Sun, piled up plates, children’s toys, dogs, cats and other detritus, in search of the remote for the vital protection of their tympanic membranes. And, once they’ve done that, well they might as well check what’s on channels 6 through 965, mightn’t they.

So here’s an idea, for anyone who shares my pov. Let’s start a campaign to lower the levels at which commercials are broadcast in the hope that, as a result, more people will hear (and see) them.

Where do we start?

Comments

[Lee McEwan]

Perhaps by starting a petition ...
http://www.petitiononline.com/

[TMR]

As you will remember, John, when we revised all of the DRTV sots for the /discuss campaign, we consciously moved in the opposite direction of shouty DR spots filled with loudmouth presenters, animated telephones and 0800 numbers repeated ad nauseum.

Instead, we went for quieter, slower tempo music, a calming voiceover and numbers on the screen permanently rather than shouted in the last 7 seconds.

It was the 'zag-whenever-everyone-else-is-zigging' strategy...

The result? A 3x response rate over our previous 'deafen 'em' DR approach.

Perhaps the IPA or whoever the DR equivalent should be encouraged to look into this phenomenon by those of us who pay their damn dues year on year?

[Pete]

As your experience reminded you of Ivor, so your comments remind me of something else: just finished reading an excellent book by Michael Bywater called 'Big Babies'.

The premise is that society is infantilising, and that we are embracing it as a population: in everything from our need to wear the same clothes and listen to the same music as our children, through to our 'notice' culture that we need to be coddled and protected from everything (I refuse to use the Daily Mail-ism 'Nanny State' because Bywater successfully avoided employing it once in 250-odd pages), to our 'I want it now, give me it' penchant for instant gratification... it's a compelling idea.

When I was reading the book, I didn't become aware of the volume of ads so much as the tone of voice. Listen to the v/o on seven out of ten ads in Corrie - it's probably higher on cable - forget the words, the tone of voice is that of an adult talking to a toddler. Then look at the number of animated characters and people in silly costumes - in ads aimed at supposed adults. Did a single one of these commercials have 'adult to toddler' in the 'tone of voice' box on the creative brief? I doubt it.

How about we talk to grown ups as grown ups? I think we'd find that would result in the volume being turned down too.