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How Many "Viewers" Will Sit Through Your TV Spot? One in Four?
January 21, 2013
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. If a TV commercial falls in the forest, and nobody sees it, is there an impression? When evaluating and placing a TV buy, we talk in terms of hundreds of points. Numbers that represent, in theory, viewer impressions. But what do these numbers really mean these days? How do they translate to actual impressions, in the post-DVR world of easily-digitally-enabled commercial avoidance? Do we even know, anymore, what, who, and how much we are buying? NuVoodoo's national studies of radio listeners 18-54 reveal the alarming numbers that your TV rep won't tell you, and may not even know.
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If a TV commercial falls in the forest, and nobody sees it, is there an impression?
When evaluating and placing a TV buy, we talk in terms of hundreds of points. Numbers that represent, in theory, viewer impressions. But what do these numbers really mean these days? How do they translate to actual impressions, in the post-DVR world of easily-digitally-enabled commercial avoidance? Do we even know, anymore, what, who, and how much we are buying?
NuVoodoo’s national studies of radio listeners 18-54 reveal the alarming numbers that your TV rep won’t tell you, and may not even know: Three out of four radio listeners 18-54 usually (i.e. at least half the time) skip through or punch out TV spots. Meanwhile, only one out of eight always sits through TV spots, and never punches them out.
The truth is that virtually all mass-advertising media have built-in spillage factors, and will not deliver all their theoretical users to their clients’ advertising.  When considering using some media other than TV, we have trained ourselves to routinely adjust for those spillage factors, estimating how many actual impressions we will make, and then internally recalculating our real cost-per-impression accordingly. And yet we do not typically go through a similar mathematical exercise when scrutinizing the points in a potential TV buy. So why shouldn’t we? Take a long hard look at the compelling data below. You will never look at TV numbers the same.
Nearly Three In Four Radio Listeners Usually Skip Spots When Watching TV
We asked a national sample of 18-54 radio listeners to tell us, using a 1 (none of the time) to 7 (all of the time) scale, how often they skip through TV spots. Their answers are staggering.
When they watch TV, only 12% of these radio listeners faithfully sit through all commercials (1). Only 28% sit through spots more than half the time (1-3). Meanwhile, 24% always skip spots (7). 57% skip spots more than half the time (5-7). And 72%, nearly three in four, say that they skip spots at least half the time.
Yikes.
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