Study Finds Repeating TV Ads In Close Succession Leads To 'Wear Out'
- by Wayne Friedman , August 4, 2021
Highlighting frequency concerns around TV commercials, a new study says viewers pay less attention to repeated connected TV ads when those spots air close to each other.
When an average CTV commercial of any length is repeated within five minutes, a viewer’s attention span -- eyes on the screen -- is just eight seconds -- an average of just 25% of the creative, TVision research says.
It notes that this creative “wear-out” is more pronounced for 60-second ads (just 14% of those ads), but less for shorter 15-second spots (45%).
When a commercial is repeated after a five-minute period, viewers give it a bit more attention -- looking at the ad with 14% more time, the study finds.
Marketers have become increasingly focused on advertising glut, including higher levels of frequency of their own creative in programming on any TV platform -- linear TV, digital and CTV.
TVision’s data comes from 5,000 U.S. CTV homes from October 29 through July 5, 2021.
TVision’s technology detects the viewer and where they are in the room without identifying individual users, and without transmitting any images or videos.
TVision provides research into 130 channels, 16,000 hours of CTV content and more than 75,000 ads.
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Interesting, but hardly surprising, Wayne.
It brings to mind the so-called "high impact" scheduling used many years ago wereby a commercial---the same one--for a brand was repeated almost immediately after it ran---with a short segue in between---on the grounds that this enabled the brand to really bang home its point to the viewer. This tactic was supported by commercial recall studies that showed significantly higher levels after two such back to back exposures---though the second exposure did not double the awareness---it merely lifted it 30-50%. As I recall, the motivational ---intent to buy----increase was even higher, percentage- wise.
This may still be the case now---if a brand is willing to pay double for two exposures within close proximity of eachother. The viewer may devote fewer seconds of visual attentiveness to the second exposure---as shown by TVision---but this may be enough of a reminder---or impact booster---to cause an increase in message awareness and sales mootivation for the two exposures treated as a deliberate pairing. Obviously, if I were an advertisers who likes this approach to scheduling, I'd need some ad impact research to go along with the TVision findings before making a decision.