D. Varan

The residual impact of avoided television advertising

This study reports the results of a laboratory experiment that compared the effects of partial exposure associated with six major avoidance modes, including DVR (digital video recorder) ad skipping, against each other and against full-attention exposures as controls. The most common form of avoidance, ignoring advertisements (cognitive avoidance), has effects equal to fast-forwarding. Prior exposure increases effectiveness of recall as partial exposures, including fast forwarding, can act as reminder ads, but prior exposure also increases avoidance. Doubling the message of an ad in its sound track increases effectiveness and is the only way to counteract the effects of cognitive avoidance.

A Comparison of Three Interactive Television AD Formats

ABSTRACT This study explores the effects of interacting with three current interactive television (iTV) ad formats, using an Australian audience panel. Interaction with iTV ads has positive effects on awareness and net positive thoughts, which increase purchase intentions compared with the influence of regular ads. The telescopic format represents the best format, likely because it makes the most of the entertaining possibilities of iTV by offering additional long-form video; its superior performance cannot be explained readily by self-selection effects. The results suggest that the effectiveness of iTV ads should be measured by their interaction rate rather than the much smaller response rate, and iTV advertisers should consider ways to maximize interaction and response rates.

Getting the Balance Right

Ad-sponsored online video programs currently use a range of commercial loading that varies from exactly the same, compared with broadcast and cable networks, to very much lower. This paper provides empirical evidence about the effects of different levels of commercial loading in online video on perceptions of ad intrusiveness and ad effectiveness, and uses skin conductance to directly observe the potentially enhancing effects of commercial disruption on arousal during the program. The results show that one ad per break maximizes both this disruptive effect and ad recall. As predicted by Nelson, Meyvis, and Galak (2009), popular prime-time television shows do not evoke a decrease in arousal over time and are not enhanced by commercial disruption.

Effectiveness of Telescopic Advertisements Delivered via Personal Video Recorders

ABSTRACT The advent of personal video recorders (PVRs) may alter existing patterns of television advertising viewing. Although much of this might be characterized by increased advertising avoidance, this article explores the potential for a new advertising model utilizing PVRs, “telescopic advertising,” enabling viewers to access extended content associated with the advertising. The effectiveness of four telescopic advertisements is compared with advertisements for the same products using the traditional 30-second TV commercial format and the infomercial format. Across four product categories, using an Australian sample, telescopic advertisements achieved significantly higher attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the brand, and behavioral intentions.

What Works Best When Combining Television Sets, PCs, Tablets, or Mobile Phones? How Synergies Across Devices Result From Cross-Device Effects and Cross-Format Synergies

ABSTRACT Advertising research often confounds device effects (e.g., television sets, radios, and personal computers) with communication format effects (e.g., respectively, video, audio, and Web sites). Across four experiments, this study documents empirical patterns of cross-device effects among television sets, PCs, iPods, and mobile phones. In three experiments, the format was identical across devices, and the device made no difference to advertising effectiveness. The fourth experiment—with different formats and devices—showed sequential synergy effects. Synergy can strengthen or weaken advertising campaigns that combine multiple communication devices. The combined results of four experiments suggest possible cross-format synergies but not cross-device synergies.

Exploring the effects of interactivity in television drama

Interactive television dramas have long promised to deliver entertaining experiences. In practice, however, successful interactive television dramas are rare. This paper suggests that the fault lies in attempts to abandon narrative structure in favour of interactive freedom and hypothesized that a model of interactive drama which encases interactivity within a strong narrative structure would be successful. This hypothesis can be seen as part of a larger research goal of which this paper represents the first step. This paper attempted to establish that the addition of interactivity to a narrative could enhance audience enjoyment. In order to test this hypothesis a research experiment was conducted which directly compared an interactive television programme to its linear counterpart. The research tested 180 participants and attempted to ascertain the differences in the viewer experience. The research found overall significantly higher averages in entertainment, appetite, immersion, and empathy among those who viewed the interactive television drama.

Interactive Narratives: Exploring the Links between Empathy, Interactivity and Structure

Interactive narratives have long been advocated as having the potential to create more immersive and transformative experiences for audiences by adding the pleasure of agency. In practice, however, finding the balance between sufficient interactivity for agency and narrative structure has been difficult. This paper proposed a model of interactive narrative, which encased interactivity within a strong narrative structure, as the best model to increase audience entertainment. In order to test the hypothesis that such a model would out perform its linear counterpart in terms of audience entertainment- two separate audience studies were conducted. The first study tested an interactive drama for television and the second study tested two interactive narrative based advertisements. When anaylsing the two studies there was a surprising result- in each case audience empathy was consistently and significantly increased by the addition of interactivity. This discovery suggests links between empathy and interactivity, and has exciting implications about the role of empathic stress and structure in the creation of future models of interactive narratives.

The effects of social TV on television advertising effectiveness

Social TV is the use of communication devices to connect with family and friends watching other TV screens. Plausible arguments suggest both positive and negative effects of social TV viewing on ad-effectiveness. This study contributes by providing evidence for the direction of social TVs effects. The results of a controlled laboratory experiment suggest that the benefits of social TV, principally its association with live TV and therefore less ad-avoidance, come at the cost of negative distraction effects. Like normal coviewing, social TV viewing distracts from ad-processing, reducing unaided recall and brand attitude favorability, compared to individual (solus) viewing. However, social TV messaging about ads improved brand attitude. Perceived creativity increased the likelihood of ad-related messaging. Social TV also has an additional source of distraction, multitasking, but in this study, multitasking did not further reduce ad-effectiveness compared to coviewing. The paper concludes with implications for advertisers and future research.

The importance of social motives for watching and interacting with digital television

Contrary to a key assumption of the TV industry, interaction with digital interactive TV (iTV) programmes and ads is driven as much by social motivations as it is by information seeking. This insight was revealed by a survey of a representative sample of 867 digital TV households in the UK, which has one of the largest and most experienced digital iTV audiences in the world. This new survey used a comprehensive but efficient set of motivation items, so that no important motivations were left out, which may explain why social motivations emerged as important in this study, whereas they have not been in studies of traditional TV watching. Suggestions are made for how marketers and programme producers can make iTV content that appeals to viewers who are motivated by social needs.

Interactive stories and the audience: Why empathy is important

Interactive narratives have long been advocated as having the potential to create more immersive and transformative experiences for audiences by adding the pleasure of agency. In practice, however, finding the balance between sufficient interactivity for agency and narrative structure has been difficult. This article proposed a model of interactive narrative, which encased interactivity within a strong narrative structure, as the best model to increase audience entertainment. In order to test the hypothesis that such a model would out perform its linear counterpart in terms of audience entertainment, two separate audience studies were conducted. The first study tested an interactive drama for television and the second tested two interactive narrative-based advertisements. When analyzing the two studies, there was a surprising result: in each case audience empathy was consistently and significantly increased by the addition of interactivity. This discovery suggests links between empathy and interactivity, and has exciting implications on the role of empathic stress and structure in the creation of future models of interactive narratives.