Commercials are good for you.

Good for clients/advertisers? Good for ad agencies?  Or … you be the judge:

Liked the Show? Maybe It Was the Commercials.
By Benedict Carey
So why is it that commercial interruptions always ruin TV programs?  Maybe they don’t. In two new studies, researchers who study consumer behavior argue that interrupting an experience, whether dreary or pleasant, can make it significantly more intense.

“The punch line is that commercials make TV programs more enjoyable to watch. Even bad commercials,” said Leif Nelson, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of California …

All true for most TV programs.  Scripts are structured around commercials, much like acts in a play.  The writers, directors, and editors take great pains to make sure you’re ready for a break – and ready to return after the cluster of commercials.  With dramatic pacing, they ease you in and out of the story.  If you watch a program without commercials, rhythm goes haywire, the half-dozen (non) transitions creating cognitive dissonance. 

With sports programming there are inherent transitions: innings, quarters, first downs, etc.  Just like the teams, you’re ready for a break. 

More from The New York Times piece:

In one of their papers, the authors even propose that commercial television evolved culturally to maximize enjoyment. The millions of Americans who record their favorite shows on TV may scoff; but they, too, often stop the shows to get a drink, make a call or talk. This kind of controlled interruption may represent a kind of ideal, Dr. Nelson said.

Not Much New Redux

NostraChuckus strikes again – and again and again.
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Stephen Reily of VibrantNation.com blogs about technology and Boomer women:

VibrantNation.com tech survey
Boomer women are early adopters of new consumer electronics
They may not know how to use all of the features on their cell phone (who does?), but a recent Vibrant Nation survey reveals that the new woman 50+ is an early adopter of first-generation consumer electronics, particularly those that support her interest in music, travel and her desire to connect with family and friends.

Sound familiar?  It would if you’d read my book, originally published four years ago in early 2005.  Two pulls:

 

The Brain Games Game

Not the greatest press lately for Brain Games:

Brain Training games no better than crosswords, experts say
Expensive electronic brain trainers … are no better than keeping the mind young and sharp than the daily crossword puzzle …

'Brain training' claims dismissed
… Results did not show that it was any better than standard computer games …

Brain games do/don't work: the debate continues
The meta-analysis concluded "that there was no evidence indicating that structured cognitive intervention programs had an impact on the progression of dementia in the healthy elderly population."

$80 million per year 'brain exercise' industry a crock?
"The brain aging products sold today can be a financial drain, decrease participation in more proven effective lifestyle interventions, like exercise, and potentially undermine cognitive health by frustrating the "worried well" if poorly designed."

My first exposure to the recent spate of brain games was at the 2004 Boomer Business Summit.  I scratched my not-too-bright head and wondered what the difference was between a brain game and any mind-bending game: Rubik's Cube, Scrabble, Sudoku, etc.  Obviously, this new crop of revolutionary IQ busters improved your brain power while all the others were, I guess, just for laughs. 

And that’s what bothered me about the marketing – and still does.  Are these new-fangled blinking lights on a screen the best way, the only way to keep your noggin nimble?  This seems to be the claim.  Or are they a new breed in a long line of cognitive games that go back to counting pebbles on a cave floor?

You certainly get the ‘hard-sell’ impression that if you don’t buy and play these games, eventually your brain will leak out of your nose and ears.  Why not just tell the truth?  These are high-tech, stimulating computer-generated exercises that will help keep your mind sharp - are structured, measurable to some degree (so they’re useful for medical research), and quite entertaining.  And there are a lot of them – so you won’t get bored just playing one over and over. 

They’re as good for you as crossword puzzles.

The more things change …

Stuart Elliott of The New York Times does a good job highlighting the maxims “the more things change, the more they remain the same” and “there’s nothing new under the sun”:

Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging
The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice ... The about-face comes after consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look.

Mr. Elliott aptly resurrects the uproar twenty-three years ago with the introduction of New Coke:

The original version was hastily brought back as Coca-Cola Classic and New Coke eventually fizzed out.

What amuses me: I keep hearing about the end of advertising as we know it because now ‘the consumer is in control’ and there are ‘brand ambassadors’ and other such nonsense.

Remember the nutty popularity of logo t-shirts in the 1980s? 

I was told back then that this was the end of advertising. Who needed it when everybody you met was a walking billboard?   

Logo t-shirts are still around – but so is advertising, last I looked. 

With no historical perspective, you might think that all has changed because of the internet. But nothing has changed. It’s simply been supercharged.  Consumers have always had influence and share control of advertising, marketing,  product development.

Read about Jean Wade Rindlaub on The Advertising Hall of Fame website:

Jean Wade Rindlaub
BBDO's long commitment to advertising and marketing research can be traced to Rindlaub. The innovative methods she developed to sound out consumers were adopted by BBDO and became widely modeled within the business.

And if you watch the video, Ms. Rindlaub says, “I could tell you who really writes advertising. You'd be surprised.  It's you.”

Three years ago Jack Trout had this to say:

Tales From The Marketing Wars A third-party endorsement of your product has always been the Holy Grail. It's more believable. In prior days, we used to try and find the "early adapters" for a product. We figured they had big mouths and loved to tell their friends and neighbors about their new widget.

The New Coke fiasco happened before the WWW, before email was ubiquitous, before IM and Twitter. Post Offices and telephones worked fine. They still do.

What the internet has done (among a few other things) is create new multimedia playing fields for advertising, marketing, public relations, research - just like the printing press, radio, and television.

The Silver Market Phenomenon and AARP AgeLine®

The Silver Market Phenomenon, edited by Florian Kohlbacher & Cornelius Herstatt, has been awarded an AgeLine® Citation by AARP Policy & Research:

AgeLine is an online, bibliographic database produced by AARP that focuses on the subject of aging and middle-aged and older adults, particularly addressing the social, psychological, economic, policy, and health care aspects of aging.

The Silver Market Phenomenon
Thirty-three individually authored chapters examine the challenges, chances, and perspectives of the current demographic shift--aging and shrinking populations--in many countries around the world …

Dick Stroud and Yours Truly contributed chapters:

More about The Silver Market Phenomenon.

Advertising to Baby Boomers is also in the database.