The Role of TV Ad Content in Viewers’ Zapping Behavior
hubie writes:
Traditional advertising is making a comeback
Recent studies show that marketers are increasingly turning from online advertising to traditional media such as TV, in part to exploit its high reach. In February 2022, marketers predicted that traditional advertising spending would increase by 2.9%.
However, effective TV advertising requires exposure, which is jeopardized when viewers deliberately avoid ads. For instance, when viewers resort to changing the channel (i.e., zapping) during ad breaks, advertisers lose the ability to communicate the brand message, leading to wasted investment. Zapping is also a problem for broadcasters because it diminishes the attractiveness of the channel for advertisers.
[...] Becker says that "Our results show that the content of ads does indeed influence consumers' zapping behavior. While a high level of creativity in the ads reduces zapping, highly informational content, strong brand presence, and early brand timing increase zapping. Thus, to discourage zapping behavior, managers should invest in creativity and refrain from too much information and branding cues. Furthermore, the brand should be placed more toward the end of the ad."
The researchers also conclude that the effects of advertising content on zapping vary significantly with category characteristics. As Scholdra explains, "We find, for example, that informativeness is more detrimental in terms of zapping for goods where consumers can only judge quality after consumption, or experiential goods like restaurants, than for goods where consumers can judge quality before consumption, or search goods like electronics." The effects of other content factors, are category dependent as well, thereby underscoring the need for managers to consider category characteristics when selecting advertising content.
[...] Results of the second study indicate that content drives zapping through irritation, but not through enjoyment. "For advertisers, it is more important to avoid psychological reactions reflecting irritation, such as annoyance or offense, than to elicit favorable reactions reflecting enjoyment, such as entertainment, or interest" says Berkmann. Informativeness, brand presence, and brand timing drive zapping by triggering irritation and creativity mitigates zapping by reducing it.
Journal Reference:
Maren Becker, Thomas P. Scholdra, Manuel Berkmann, The Effect of Content on Zapping in TV Advertising, J Marketing, 2022. DOI: 10.1177/00222429221105818
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