Phillip Swann (AKA Swanni) of TVPredictions.com is claiming he predicted back in 2002 that PVRs would not bring about the death of advertising, rather that ad companies would have to "invest more money in creating entertaining commercials that viewers will want to watch...through PR blitzes, product placement on TV shows."He backs up his claim with evidence of the recent Coke and Sprite "PVR Ready" ad campaign, which requires users to watch ads at slow speeds in order to find codes and spend time chasing around the internet to get a free can of Cola, or something. He also cites a recent News.com article on "Gold Rush," an interactive game that asks players to monitor CBS television programs and commercials for clues to find $2 million in gold.
He cites a few other reasons, such as the current users of PVRs being more tech-savvy than future users, meaning that ad-skipping will reduce in the future.
I do like Swanni's stuff, but he needs to remember something; just because these advertising guys invent ads targetted at PVR users, doesn't mean to say we'll watch them. Personally, I'd rather not -- and I'm not alone.
In fact, the only time I ever watch ads is when I don't have a choice (live TV, for example -- which I try to avoid like the plague), or when I'm trying to catch the end of the ads as they whiz past at 30x speed, waiting to press 'play' and start watching my show again.
And sooner or later, some kid in a backroom with a fantastic grasp of Perl is going write a free application that figures out when the ads are over, to save your index finger the trouble of hovering over the play button.
He's wrong about PVRs not being a threat to TV advertising though.
I'll make prediction right here, right now on PVR Wire: they are, and they will continue to be.
1. Like many consultants, the guy is a relentless self-promoter and "self-proclaimed" visionary. Everyone knows PVRs reduce ad viewing and, I suspect, in the dark of the night Swanni knows it to. I, and everyone I know who has a PVR (and while this is anecdotal, I am pretty sure we're the exception, not the rule) watch way less commercials because the PVR allows us to do that. I watch an hour of TV a night and I watch no commercials.
It's like pointing to the one school built on a corner in Baghdad by US taxpayers that hasn't been blown up and saying "see, look how out theories of democracy on the march are coming to fruition!"
Posted at 9:06PM on May 23rd 2006 by mr_joneses