illustration: Chris Sharp

Advertisers spent more than $64 billion last year on television commercials, but many are increasingly worried that their ads are being overlooked as viewers with TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs) fast-forward through commercial breaks. They have reason for concern: By the end of this decade it is estimated that more than 40 percent of U.S. homes will have a DVR, and as one research report on DVR usage notes, “essentially all viewers fast forward through advertising.” In a study published in the November 2008 issue of the Journal of Marketing, two Boston College professors analyze what, if any, information viewers retain from exposure to fast-forwarded commercials.

S. Adam Brasel is an assistant professor of marketing who uses eye tracking technology to study how people watch new media such as web-based programs, video games, and podcasts; James Gips is a professor of computer science whose primary work has been the development of technology that allows profoundly disabled individuals to communicate with a computer through subtle eye or head movements. The two are codirectors of the Carroll School of Management Eyetracker lab, which has instruments that can identify, at 60 frames per second, a viewer’s point of focus and degree of pupil dilation (a measure of attention).

For their study, Brasel and Gips showed subjects an edited, 24-minute nature program from the Discovery Channel that included five commercial breaks, or “pods,” each containing three to six advertisements. Forty-eight participants watched the program, alone. One-third were instructed not to fast-forward; one-third were told to fast-forward through the commercials (at the standard midrange speed of 20X); the others saw a version of the show in which fast-forwarding occurred automatically, allowing the researchers to study the effect of fast-forwarding on viewers who don’t control the remote. As with home units, fast-forwarding eliminated the audio.

In all, the researchers reviewed upwards of 86,000 frames of data per viewer. They found that participants who manually fast-forwarded paid roughly the same amount of attention (measured by pupil dilation) during commercials as during the program itself. This appeared to confirm their speculation that fast-forwarders become goal-oriented viewers, watching for the end of a commercial pod. By contrast, viewers who were passively exposed to fast-forwarding paid less attention during commercial breaks, as did regular-speed viewers.

Equally significant for advertisers, the research showed that all who witnessed fast-forwarding—whether they controlled it or not—focused almost exclusively on the screen’s central area when they watched. “We were amazed,” Brasel says. They “just moved their eyes to the center of the screen and then didn’t move them away.”

This focus did not necessarily translate into brand recognition. On a questionnaire completed after the program, fast-forwarders were far less successful than regular-speed viewers at identifying which brands had been shown. But for all three groups, ads in which brand information appeared in the middle of the screen achieved greatest recognition. This was especially true for manual fast-forwarders.

In a follow-on study, Brasel and Gips looked at whether the length of exposure and location of branding in commercials might affect participants’ consumer urges. Among the 20 commercials shown were ads for two British chocolate bars, Aero and Flake, presumably unfamiliar to U.S. viewers. The commercials were customized to allow two presentations for each candy: In one version, branding was central for 12 of the ad’s 30 seconds; in the other, central branding appeared for only three seconds. The participants were divided into two groups. Each viewer saw longer branding for one product and shorter branding for the other.

As they departed after their session, participants were invited to choose a candy bar from a basket at the door. Regular-speed viewers chose the bar with the longer branding display 64 percent of the time; fast-forwarding viewers chose it 67 percent of the time—even though, for them, the entire commercial lasted only about 1.5 seconds. This was further confirmation that “strong central branding can break through fast-forwarding and still achieve brand memory,” conclude the authors.

What’s next for Brasel and Gips? They’re now studying media multi-tasking—such as what happens when people watch television while surfing the web.

Sue Rardin is a writer based in the Boston area.

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