DVR technology is entering the lives of more and more people very year, and changing the way that they enjoy home entertainment.
However, it is also causing problems for Melbourne Fl advertising and ad agencies, who previously had enjoyed a fairly consistent approach to the televised medium.
Nowadays it is possible for people to watch TV and then fast-forward through advertisements. This gives them more control over what they watch. For example, they could be watching a short comedy show and pause the program briefly to go to the bathroom or kitchen.
Then, later, thanks to the time-shift technology, when the advertising segment arrives, the person naturally wants to fast-forward through it and get back to the remainder of the TV show. Even five years ago almost a third of US households used this method for watching TV. Today that number is even greater.
As a result, the advertisers who maintain a traditional approach, assuming that their advert will still be seen, are simply wasting their money. Therefore, a great deal of time and money goes into researching the habits of people in this new era of entertainment. The results show that people’s habits are not consistent, and that it changes widely across the demographics. But it is still unclear exactly how people are utilizing this new technology.
More than 80% of advertising executives believe that they will need to adopt a very different strategy to cope with this change in view habits, and take into consideration new means of advertising, such as product-placement, sponsorship of programming, and pop-up ads similar to those used online.Additionally, with the increased use of DVRs, advertisers are now looking increasingly to the internet for the future. But it is defeatist to move away from TV entirely.
One interesting fact to note is that most advertising executives currently admit to being in the dark regarding the use of DVRs. No one seems to know just how popular they are, how exactly they are used by different people, and what direction they will take in the future. This has resulted in a change of direction in the industry, as ad agencies attempt to offset the risk by spreading their budget. Where once traditional TV advertising would dominate, advertisers are now diversifying.
What this shows is that advertising companies need to increase their budget for research so that they can make informed decisions instead of wasting money by following traditional routes. They need to examine different demographics and how these people use their TVs. They need to study the different sort of use associated with different types of TV show (for example, comedies, drams, sports) and viewing habits across different times of the day.
Ultimately, DVR technology has thrown up new challenges for the TV advertising industry, but it has not put an end to it. Advertising companies need to adapt to these changes, and the ones that prove to be the most flexible will succeed, while the others flounder and fail.
