High Energy TV Commercials Often Backfire
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Banastock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — With airtime on TV expensive, advertisers will do whatever they can to stand out from the rest of pack, often by producing loud, fast-moving and obnoxious commercials.
Instead of grabbing viewers’ attention, advertisers may be doing just the opposite, particularly if commercials are run during shows that are low key or even melancholy.
Researchers from Oxford University, Columbia University and Babson College had participants first watch a clip from a sad movie or a neutral segment from a documentary. This was followed by a commercial for a car insurance company that was either highly energetic or only moderately energetic.
Although told that they could watch the ad for as long as they liked, people who had seen the sad movie clip first mostly watched only part of the high-energy commercial or none of it. Even worse for the advertiser, they had difficultly recalling the name of the sponsor.
However, those who saw the moderately energetic spot responded to it far more favorably even if they had just seen the sad clip, which featured a boy crying.
The researchers’ advice to advertisers is that lowering the level of energy in commercials might make them stand out more in a fast-paced modern world that leaves so many people drained to begin with.
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