Increase In TV Ad Minutage Would Damage Efficacy
An increase in the amount of minutes per hour of advertising on television would lessen the effectiveness of the marketing, according to panellists at the ‘Future of Television’ seminar, held by MediaTel Group in London yesterday.
Recent reports have suggested that Ofcom is looking at the possibility of pushing up the current limit to as much as 12 minutes, following the news that the EU is preparing to launch its own directive on the subject later in the year (see Ofcom Could Increase TV Ad Minutes).
“There is a real danger that you do render the advertising increasingly ineffective,” said Jim Marshall, chairman of Starcom Mediavest Group.
“We don’t spend enough time as an industry… in trying to understand effectiveness versus slightly more one-dimensional metrics like cost per thousand. I think we need to do more of that.”
Nick Bampton, managing director at Viacom Brand Solutions, agreed that there needed to be more of a focus on effectiveness.
“I think there’s enough advertising as there is,” he said, suggesting the industry and Ofcom would be better off examining the TV market as a whole, rather than spending time picking apart each individual issue.
He continued: “If TV actually goes out and increases the number of commercial impacts it’s got… the incentive is that people spend less on it.”
Media journalist, Ray Snoddy, suggested that an increase in ad minutage would render the medium “as unwatchable as American television”, whilst Andy Barnes, sales director at Channel 4, said he would “hate television in this country to go down that path.”
Barnes suggested an increase would have a hugely negative effect, with people choosing not to watch as much television.
Also in agreement was ITV sales director, Gary Digby, who suggested from the floor than more ad minutes would “turn the consumer off”. Digby said: “I would prefer that everyone goes to seven minutes than we all go to nine. For some it’s not acceptable as the price would go up but I genuinely feel there is too much clutter on screen and I think it will turn the consumer off. We’re quite happy for the status quo to remain.”
The EU currently airs nine minutes of advertising every hour, whilst US television airs 13 minutes of ads each hour, almost double that aired in the UK.
Last January Ofcom ruled out any change that would have allowed terrestrial broadcasters to increase their ad minutes to the same number as the UK’s digital broadcasters, who can air nine minutes per hour.
MediaTel Group: 020 7439 7575 www.mediatelgroup.co.uk