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Plethora of Promos to Crowd The TV Screen

TV networks and advertisers are quietly testing whether consumers will respond to promos and ads that run on the top and bottom sectors of the screen while programs are airing. For instance, Walt Disney recently disclosed that its ABC and ESPN TV networks are testing the efficiency of "upper-third messaging," or graphics that appear in the top third of the TV screen.

Advertisers have already found that such in-show ads are memorable to viewers. The Ask.com search site ran "crawl" ads along the bottom of the TV screen on selected networks earlier this year. When the crawls ran at the bottom of the screen during Nascar races, they drove a "significantly" higher volume of queries than a traditional 15-second ad, says John Moore, director at Mullen, the agency that placed the ads.

Sponsoring a graphic overlay of sports information during a baseball game could be a welcome method for an advertiser to get onscreen in a nontraditional way, say some supporters. Indeed, TV executives say in-show promos are generally more welcome during news and sports programming than during original scripted fare.

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