Could an Ad be Made to Work With Tivo/DVR Content?

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courtesy: Mediabistro.com

While reading a piece in The Economist today about how advertisements can work in fast forward, an intriguing thought popped into our mind. See, researchers found that when a person fast forwards through an ad, he/she focuses intently on the picture in order to know when to stop fast-forwarding. Ultimately, the report found, the viewer may pay more attention to an ad when it’s being fast-forwarded than in real time. Here comes the “duh” moment. Why aren’t you making ads that deliver a message in fast-forward, too?

The study, which was printed in the The Journal of Marketing, was conducted by Adam Brasel and James Gips of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College in Massachusetts. The findings are about two months old, AdFreak wrote about them here.

More data: results found that subjects focused on the center of the screen, and that even a logo shown for a third of a second could be recognized if it was placed correctly.

Our thought: When producing TV spots, put the damn logo in the middle of the screen.

Here’s another thought that might help with the issue. Why not produce ads so that when they are shown in fast-forward, they still send a message. Think of it as an opportunity to hide a message within the commercial. That’s what you’re doing anyway, right?

This way, when a viewer fast-forwards your ad, he/she will still get the message. It could even be fun — during primetime show, a code could be hidden in the fast-forwarded message, that when entered at the Web site would award 50% off or something like that.

Clearly, we don’t have all the kinks worked out of this idea, but we want to know what you think: could this work? Offer your thoughts in the comments section.