Every now and then, a study will be released suggesting that DVR owners donât actually skip very many ads. While I can understand why people would want to watch certain programs live, itâs always hard for me to take this kind of data seriously, because it tracks so differently, from my own DVR experience.
I love being able to time shift my television and take full advantage of my fast forward button. If I absolutely need to see something live, Iâll still wait 20 minutes, just so that I can skip past the commercials. Over the last six years, Iâve been every marketers worst nightmare and yet, there has been one company that I have never been able to block.
Sleeptrain Mattress Centers
Itâs not a major company, but this sleepy little company has been able to outsmart the DVR, by exploiting the very fast forward feature, that I love so much.
When you are fast forwarding, you donât know when to stop until after your program has already started. Because of this, TiVo has built in a feature that starts playing the program a few seconds before you actually hit the play button. The idea is to account for the time that it takes your brain to tell your finger to hit the button.
When I bought my first TiVo, I did a good job of fusing with the skip back feature. By instinct, I knew the exact moment that I needed to hit play, in order to achieve TiVo nirvana. It sounds funny, but there is a certain sense of satisfaction, in starting a program exactly as a commercial ends.
It wasnât until I âupgradedâ? to a cable company HDTV-DVR, that I lost my TiVo mojo. The fast forward speed on the generic device was beyond ridiculous and I had a hard time adjusting. Add to this the lag time, whenever you hit play anyway and it was easy to go 15 minutes into a program, before I could regain control of the DVR. I donât remember the exact timing on the cable skip back, but it seemed much shorter then TiVoâs and required lightning fast reflexes, in order to get right.
When I upgraded to a TiVo series 3, I thought that my commercial skipping rhythm would return, but sadly, I havenât been able to make the adjustment back. Iâm still trigger happy when it comes to hitting play and start things far too early. Iâve thought about using hacks to shorten the length of the auto skip back feature, but would rather try and adjust to the default if I can.
Because Iâve had difficulty hitting the TiVo sweet spot, it means that I catch the end of a lot of advertisements. There arenât a lot of companies that have focused on this, but over the years Iâve noticed that Sleep Train Mattress Centers seems to be at the end of a lot of commercial pods.
At first, I thought that this was a random thing, but Iâve also noticed that they buy time at the 30 minute marks, so that their logo is the last thing you see, when you delete a lot of programs from your DVR. As advertising continues to adjust to a DVR world, weâll see more companies begin to pay a premium, in order to capture even a few seconds of a viewers attention.
In thinking about DVR advertising, there are two key spots. The first spot following a commercial and the very last moments before a program starts. The first spot is important because the advertiser has a chance to convince the viewer to watch. Itâs like a home version of the Gong show. The minute you realize itâs boring, you hit fast forward and are back to your program. Sometimes, if itâs a movie preview or an especially creative ad, they can convince me to watch, but most of the time, Iâm fast forwarding the second I know that itâs not part of the show.
With all of the middle ads being largely ignored, those last few seconds of a pod may be the only other chance for an advertiser to reach a fast forwarding public. I havenât seen a lot of companies take advantage of this, but give kudos to Sleeptrain for having taken early advantage of this. They may not be able to convince me to buy a new mattress, but through the use of micro commercials and smart placement, they have succeeded at burning their logo into my brain, every time I hear a train whistle.
Davis Freeberg is a technology enthusiast living in the Bay Area. He enjoys writing about movies, music, and the impact that digital technology is having on traditional media. Read more of his musings at Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection. Davis is a TiVo shareholder.
I don’t have proof but the Ipod Nano commercial seems to be made for DVR users.
It’s interesting that you say that because I’ve noticed that they do tend to be the first commercial on a lot of programs too. The song they picked was great, it makes you want to sit and listen to the entire spot. It’s a good example of how DVRs could be making advertising better. If you give consumers good content in exchange for the ad, they’ll tune in, but if you annoy them, there is little incentive for the DVR owner to stick around.
Davis,
Maybe you skip a lot of ads. Maybe I do too. But that doesn’t mean most of the people that own Tivo’s do. I’m not saying the studies are right, but I can personally believe them at least. Don’t confuse your own behavior with that of others.
And p.s. even though I skip lots of ads, I still watch quite a few, its just on purpose.
Glenn
I’d say about 1/3rd the time I forget to skip the ads, and will check email or my mind will wander. Except when I’m watching with Melissa who NEVER forgets and has no problem reminding me (as keeper of the remote control) to fast foward.
Some friends of our who are relatively tech savvy recently picked up their first DVR (a Comcast Motorola box) and knew they had fast forward and rewind, but it never really occurred to them to use it to skip commercials. Just as surprising (to me) is that they didn’t realize they could pause live TV! But hopefully I’ve now trained them how to create their own Redskins instant replays.
“TiVo mojo”! LOL! My wife and I never had a name for it, but we know exactly what you’re talking about. Over Thanksgiving, my wife impressed my brother with her triple-speed fast-forwarding. When challenged, she was able to get it to play perfectly on cue. However, with the Comcast DVR, we both have know mojo, as we’re back to the old VCR style of guessing when the show is just about to come back on. The Go back button doesn’t help much as it’s set for 20 seconds – we miss the 8 second go back TiVo button.
I started DVRing with a Replay TV unit which still works. It has one feature that I believe was outlawed in all later units – Auto Skip Commercials- I think it detects the increase in sound modulation percentage that network/stations do to increase the volume on your TV during their ads. It isn’t perfect, but works 90% of the time. T W Cable included a DVR in the deal I now using and it doesn’t have even a skip forward 15 sec. Hopefully, some genius somewhere is creating a hack for the AT8550 remote to accomplish this feature. Till then I’ll keep searching…..