Since this thread is about the television industry I’ll start it here, but it may end up somewhere else.
Watching a Dish Network commercial about a ‘one button’ way to skip commercials got me thinking. Except for live events like news or sports, I record all TV I watch onto a DVR and use Direct TV’s ‘skip forward’ button to skip over commercials. I’ve gotten it down to where I can usually guess how many button presses I need to skip even 3 or 4 commercials crammed together. I suspect that a lot of other people with DVRs are doing the same thing, and while data is still being collected on how many people are watching certain shows, that doesn’t mean those people are ever seeing the ads those shows may contain.
With DVR sophistication going up, and the cost of a DVR going down, I can imagine a future when most people will be skipping TV ads. Of course less people watching ads means they aren’t worth as much and so the associated ad revenues should start to go down as a result.
I know that networks are making money on their myriad of subscription services to the cable and satellite TV companies, and that big events like the Super Bowl still bring in big bucks, but surely their ad revenues will start to take a hit if they haven’t already.
So is there concern about this lost ad revenue or do the big networks have it all figured out? Will the future mean that we pay more for our TV subscription service but never have to watch another TV ad again? (think PBS, but without the underwriter credits)…
You’ll never escape commercials entirely. Look at basic cable, the model is for the cable system to pay the network a few cents for each customer, but USA, TNT, etc. have always run commercials.
The broadcast networks have used product placements for decades. Local stations are using sponsor “bugs” in the corner of the screen - it’s probably only a matter of time until the networks start showing cans of Budweiser in the corner of the screen during football games, splitting the screen so one side has action while the other has ads, etc.
Trust me, every way viewers can figure out to avoid ads just spurs the networks to find a new way to get them in.
Product placement and sponsorship will just get worse. Look at what has happened in movies in the last decade. Bond movies look like extended ads for Audi, Bulova, Heineken, etc. Survivor has become a joke of product placement.
Product placement is obviously the new advertising gimmick - well, not new, exactly, but more widely used. silenus offers up several examples. American Idol (Coke and Ford) is probably worse than Survivor, but I see product placement on a lot of TV shows now. Sometimes it’s handled fairly seamlessly, but other times it is jarring and disrupts the show.
Split screen advertising has been used in auto racing for quite some time, as races don’t take commercial breaks like football and baseball.
I find this a very interesting topic, but when I read the OP I found myself wondering “how many people actually view TV with DVR’s?” (mostly because I do not use one myself). Anyway i found this article which states that “Time-Shifted Viewing” (i.e. from DVR or Video On Demand) accounted for only 8.6% of man-hours of TV Viewing in Q2-2013 (up from 8.0% the same period in 2012)
At these levels i don’t think much will change, but if a significant increase occured, maybe we would end up seeing obnoxious levels of product placement as other posters suggest.
I couldn’t decide what was more distracting in a recent episode of the Mindy Project: the fact that she was clearly writing on a Surface tablet, the fact that she brought the tablet to a fancy restaurant to do her writing, or that no one went, “the fuck is that janky iPad you got?”
I think the way viewers interact with advertising will (and is) changing. In my household, you are quite correct about the use of the DVR. We record all of our “must see” first-run programming and watch it when it is convenient for us. Of course, we don’t sit through the commercials. However, at other times, we will have a program like Big Band Theory or some other sitcom running in the background while we pursue other activities. In those cases, we do see the ads if we happen to be looking at the program right then. So, it seems to me, the trick for advertisers is going to be getting me to turn and look at the ad while avoiding pissing me off in the process. (I am turned off by ads made to look like an emergency news announcement or play some blaring sound that forces attention. Annoying me is not the way to get me to consider your product.)
We DVR all of our regular programming and FF through the commercials. The only commercials I see are on news or sports programs that we watch live. Watching college football on Saturday, I was disgusted by the number of loud, annoying commercials that feature grating and repetitive sound effects. I guess it gets attention, but it is extremely annoying - both of which are probably good to advertising minds.
I don’t watch that many mainstream programs, but I’ve noticed a very significant increase in extended product placements within shows. For example, Restaurant Impossible does numerous unnecessary close-ups of the Lexus logo on Robert’s car, or the HGTV logo on the paint cans. And toward the end of Dirty Jobs, most episodes would feature at least one sequence featuring a Ford pickup and one of its useful features.
Product placement doesn’t bother me as much as it apparently bothers other people.
Yes, Robert Irvine clearly has a product deal with Lexus, but who cares? I’m not going to run out and buy a Lexus because some celebrity has a product deal. And if someone has a Coke can or Pepsi can in their hand doesn’t really bother me either.
I guess I just don’t pay that much attention to what products are being used in TV and movies. Perhaps I am truly an odd duck.
Usually when it’s done right, it’s when the establishing shots for a scene prominently show the product in question - like if they’re in a bar, the shots clearly show Bud Light signs and maybe a few bottles. Or it’s when a character uses the product in question as part of the show or movie- like say… the character drinks a coke that’s shown clearly enough.
Bad product placement is when the placement is actually intrusive- the shots linger too long on the car or car logo, or focus in on the logo during a car chase, or there’s some unnatural work on the part of the actor to ensure that the beer bottle, cigarette pack or whatever is front & center for all to see.
I actually prefer the well-done version to commercials- it’s non-intrusive, and I don’t have to fast-forward around it. The bad stuff… ugh.
Recently? The Bond producers have been crowing about how much product placement they stuffed in since 1995’s GoldenEye and I’ll bet it goes back even further than that.
For all its faults, I think Two and a Half Men did product placement pretty well like when they would be at the bar drinking beer, you could tell it was Sam Adams (at least it always looked like it was), but they didn’t go out of their way to show it.
I PVR all the TV I watch, if I find something new and want to check it out, I will record it and watch it later.
I skip most commercials. However, commercials for Victoria’s Secret will be watched, sometimes more than once and quite often in slo-motion. Then my wife and I can ooh and ah over how Allie and Adriana bounced back after babies
Product placement was getting a bit annoying on Burn Notice towards the end: lots of loving shots of Fiona’s Hyundai Genesis, and for some reason everyone in Miami has decided to get a Windows Phone. O.o They did miss a golden opportunity for Yoplait to sponsor them, though.
I get rather agitated with commercials, so the DVR is a godsend for me. On the other hand, we have my parents, who DVR a fair amount of stuff… and then watch the commercials anyway.
USA Network shows ride that fine line between plenty and too much- White Collar has Ford ads starring cast members, and usually has prominent Fords that the FBI characters drive.
Lots of other people have already beaten me to it, but I only find product placement bothersome when it’s poorly done. In the examples I mentioned, they would interrupt dialogue for prolonged close-ups of the logos, or the dialogue would abruptly change to a discussion of a feature of the product.
