Less Means More On Network TV - More Clutter

Fifteen-second commercials, once thought to be a potential television advertising clutter threat, are threatening to do so once again. Fifteens now account for more than 36 percent of all commercial inventory sold by the major broadcast networks, and in some major dayparts and advertising categories, can range from more than half to nearly two-thirds of all ad units sold.

"It's eye-opening," says Brian Cauley, a principal of Media IQ, the media evaluation firm that conducted the analysis, referring to the "sheer volume of :15 commercials being run."

Media IQ took particular note of daytime TV, a daypart favored by big packaged goods marketers such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark; pharmaceutical marketers like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson; and food marketers including General Mills and Kellogg.

Media IQ fond that :15s now account for 51 percent of ad units running on network daytime TV. "It's the equivalent of every other commercial being a :15," says Cauley, adding that in the food category, :15s now represent 63 percent of network TV commercials.

advertisement

advertisement

The findings seem counterintuitive considering that marketers claim to be eschewing TV advertising clutter. Use of :15s, which grew rapidly during the late 1980s after the major broadcast networks agreed to sell them as discrete advertising units, eventually began to wane during the 1990s, dropping to a 30 percent share of network ad inventory in 1994 from a high of 38 percent in 1989.

But the trend appears to be getting worse, and not just on television. Recently, radio broadcasting giant Clear Channel Communications embarked on a "less is more" strategy it claimed would curtail clutter on its radio stations. Under that plan, Clear Channel is shortening its standard advertising unit to 30-seconds from the radio industry's traditional 60-second unit length. Clear Channel says the move will enable it to air fewer minutes of commercial airtime per hour, but critics argue that will not necessarily mean fewer advertising messages, which experts consider to be the real clutter culprit.

In fact, according to Media IQ, that is what appears to be happening with daytime network TV, where the percentage of so-called "A" position ads - or the first unit in a commercial break - has gone down dramatically for advertisers in the daypart.

Among food marketers, only 30 percent of commercials aired in A positions during network daytime. Among personal care marketers, only 18 percent of ads were As.

And in one particular programming genre, the network daytime soap operas produced by Procter & Gamble, the percentage of A positions was precariously low, even for P&G. In those soaps - "As The World Turns" and "Guiding Light" - Media IQ found that only 17 percent of drug marketers' ads, 12 percent of food marketers' ads, 12 percent of personal care product marketers' ads, and only 14 percent of P&G's ads were in A positions.

There's "no doubt pod clutter is a growing problem," says Media IQ's Cauley. "Networks are culpable with their expanding commercialization and increasing use of network promos. But little is said of the growing reliance by advertisers on the 15-second copy length. Each year, the numbers of :15s increase, and :30s decrease."

Next story loading loading..