TV Advertising Comment #1 - Backload the Spots

This will begin a semi-regular feature of SwoboBlog: Comments on Advertising. I'll include critiques of specific spots or general observations on advertising.

This first TVAC (TeleVision Advertising Comment) will be a general observation.

There are lots of creative, thoroughly entertaining spots out there, and so often I'll think about them when I'm in my car or on the job, smile or even chuckle to myself, and then realize that I don't know what they were selling. This is not a new phenomenon, certainly, and it has to suggest a deficiency or breakdown in the creative or account management process, but nevertheless, there it is.

Often we'll tune in to a spot at some point after the spot is underway. This can be either because:

1. We were channel surfing and landed in the middle of the spot, or
2. We were reading, daydreaming, talking or otherwise tuned out and only manage to tune into the spot at some point between the beginning and end.

The cool spot will grab us and we'll start laughing immediately and be entertained through to the end. In this new age of DVR, if it is cool enough and we are so inclined, we will TIVO back to the beginning of the spot and see if from the get go. Usually we will let it go and vow (maybe a bit strong, how about "maybe try") to catch it from the beginning, typically later in the same show, since repetition is another key component of advertising.

And, statistically speaking in this age of remote controls and split second attention spans, I think it is safe to say that most of us see the back half of commercials a LOT more than the front half, some PhD candidate should do a study (if it hasn't already been done).

Okay, okay, I'm getting to the point. The point is, advertisers will sometimes put the main point of the spot at the very beginning, and not revisit that main point again. So having tuned in after the beginning, I will have missed that point. Now trust me when I say that 99.9 percent of the time I really don't care whether I get point or not. Being entertained by commercials is 99.9 percent of the reason I even watch them. But the advertisers aren't getting the bang they're most certainly paying for.

So my suggestion is, that the spot always refer to the main point some how, some way towards the end of the spot as well as the beginning, even if it is just a little text superimosed over the video. I'm not promising I'll be tuned in, at least not every time, but I think the odds are I will be some of the time, and that's all you can ask for, right? I mean, other than that Apple 1984 commercial that only ran once, during the Super Bowl, most advertisers buy enough time so every man, woman and child in the country will be exposed to it an infinite number of times.

SwoboBlog's TVAC #1 - You've got to back load the message, because the back will be seen more than the front.