by Lauren Nohelty, Student at Babson College
In today’s advertising world, marketers are faced with the
challenge of maximizing the effectiveness of television commercials, especially
since the birth of the DVR, Netflix, Hulu and other TV tools. Audiences are no
longer forced to watch ads in between segments of programming, which is great
for viewers but bad for marketers. To combat this problem, advertisers have
tried to make commercials more high energy and engaging in order to retain
viewership. In fact, over 80% of television ads are classified as high energy.
You know these commercials -- the ones that are bright, action-packed and
typically upbeat. However, recent findings revealed that all these attempts to
capture the audience, may in fact be turning them away.
Research conducted by Nancy Puccinelli (Oxford University),
Keith Wilcox (Colombia University), and Dhruv Grewal (Babson College), has
shown that the way consumers respond to advertisements is more closely related
to the energy level of the media they are watching than previously considered.
So what does this mean for the marketing industry and why should we care? The
researchers performed five different studies on the relationship between the
energy content of media and the energy level of the ads paired with them. Their
conclusions are as follows.
Energy matters more than nature
Researchers found that it’s not the positive or negative
nature of the show that impacts the consumers’ response, but instead the energy
level. High energy TV programs like action movies or sitcoms activate your
brain, so after watching a movie like the Avengers you will be more mentally
alert. However, after watching low energy programming such as House of Cards, high
energy commercials can be difficult for consumers to watch so they will actually
spend less time paying attention to the commercials.
Consumers Have Lower Recall When the Energy Does Not Match
Commercials become difficult to process for your brain when
the level of activation induced by the media content is highly discrepant with
the energy in the commercial. So consumers that are in a somber state after
watching House of Cards will have lower brand recall if they watch a Capital
One ad afterwards. The reasoning behind this is because people have a harder
time processing information when they transition from a task that is easy to
process to one that is more difficult. Considering that the goal of advertising
is often to increase brand awareness, it seems that these ads might not be
hitting the mark.
Making Sure the Fit Is Right
Here’s the problem -- with
streaming, viewers can now opt out of commercials, which is why advertisers
tend to gravitate toward creating high energy commercials that are funny and
engaging in order to keep their audience’s attention. However, research shows
that this is only effective for roughly 60% of media that falls into the high
energy category. The goal is to find a way to target the other 40% of media and
deliver a message that works. Marketers are undermining themselves with this
approach if the only goal is to catch the viewer’s attention through high
energy presentations. Marketers need to consider the energy level, in addition
to target demographics, because a person watching House of Cards is less likely
to pay attention to an Axe commercial aired immediately after.
Therefore,
in order to maximize the effectiveness of TV ads, marketers need to selectively
place their commercials. High energy commercials should be shown during high
energy programming, such as sit-coms like Modern Family. Marketers should air moderate
or low energy commercials during other types of shows, such as nature programs
or news shows. All marketers should be taking this into consideration,
especially since consumers have changed the way they watch television.
Article Citation:
Puccinelli, Nancy, Keith L. Wilcox and Dhruv Grewal (2015), “Consumers’ Response to Commercials: When the Energy Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context,” Journal of Marketing, 79 (March), 1-18.