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posted by martyb on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the adverts-averse? dept.

This puts an actual smile on my face:

Media companies, including Time Warner Inc., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Viacom Inc., have started cutting back on commercials after years of squeezing in as many ads as possible.

The new strategy is an attempt to appeal to younger viewers, who are more accustomed to watching shows ad-free on online streaming services like Netflix Inc., and to advertisers concerned their messages are being ignored amid all the commercial clutter.

Time Warner's truTV will cut its ad load in half for prime-time original shows starting late next year, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes said last week on an earnings call. Viacom has recently slashed commercial minutes at its networks, which include Comedy Central and MTV. Earlier this month, Fox said it will offer viewers of its shows on Hulu the option to watch a 30-second interactive ad instead of a typical 2 1/2-minute commercial break. Fox says the shorter ads, which require viewers to engage with them online, are more effective because they guarantee the audience's full attention.


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  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:47PM

    by Nuke (3162) on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:47PM (#262319)

    the fact that images you've seen over and over again become indistinguishable from your actual memories

    So is that the theory behind them showing exactly the same advert over and over for months or even years?

    Example (in the UK) ad for a high street optician chain : a senile old farmer shearing his sheep also shears his dog without realising it because he needs glasses. Faintly amusing the first time you see it, but I must have first seen that ad 2 years ago, and they are still broadcasting it now; someimes during every break, that's every 15 minutes. It is now just irritating. Why don't they vary it - does it really cost much to film a minute long anecdote like that?

    In any case, I don't understand why a worn out weak joke would make someone go to that retailer rather than any other. I go to an optician on the basis of it being competent based on past performance, and convenient to reach.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:21PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:21PM (#262335) Journal

    Booking time with directors, camera crews, actors, etc is very expensive. Ridiculously expensive. It's diametrically opposed to what your real world knowledge of starving actors/artists says it should be. That's why they play the same commercials over an over again, because it lowers the marginal cost of producing the commercial. But if you've been paying close attention to commercials in the last 3 years, you'll have noticed that they're cut differently, such that they end at different times or have other slight variations; that's because recent research has shown that people ignore sameness, and pay attention to differences. But to the conscious mind, the commercial is identical and incredibly tedious.

    But in the end, the hook, the humor of the commercial when first seen, is meant to create associations in your mind and the repetition thereof is meant establish those associations as false memories. So, when you think, "I need new glasses or contact lenses," you think, "LensCrafters." You might even come to think, which is their design, that everyone who needs new glasses goes to LensCrafters and that you can trust them to do likewise for you because "you've heard of them."

    They didn't know all of this stuff on a neurological level of course when they started out with modern advertising, they just noticed it worked and ran with that. Now that they have the tools to see your brain in action, they know that certain messages and repetitions invoke the same neuro-chemical changes as actual experiences, such that you are incapable of distinguishing them.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 13 2015, @06:25PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday November 13 2015, @06:25PM (#262782) Journal

      ...because "you've heard of them."
       
      And if you don't think that effects you, then you are highly likely to be falling for it hard.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:37PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:37PM (#262344) Journal

    That is at least part of the truth. Tell a lie often enough, and loud enough, and people start to beleive it. I could look up the exact quote, but you get the idea. Let's say that you ate at Mable's Diner some years ago, and the food sucked. Mable runs adverts claiming that she makes the best food in town. You know it sucked years ago, but you hear it 16 times every day: "Mable's cooking is better than Grandma's!" So, one day you're in Mable's neighborhood, you're hungry, and you've only heard Mable's commercial about 300 times in recent memory. You stop in. The food still sucks, but the constant reminders have tricked you into ignoring what you actually knew. Mable's cooking might be better than prison food, but not by much.