DVR USERS SKIP ADS, REMEMBER THEM ANYWAY

Eighty-six percent of British viewers who watch TV shows on their DVRs always skip through commercials, according to a study prepared for the international accounting company Deloitte by market research firm YouGov. Respondents indicated that they would do less ad-skipping if both the commercials and the commercial breaks were shorter. Nevertheless, the study found that TV ads are far more memorable than ads in any other medium. Fifty-two percent of respondents said TV ads are the most memorable, followed by newspapers (10 percent), online video (2 percent) and online banner ads (1 percent). (Presumably radio and billboard advertising were not included in the study.) In an interview with the BBC, Paul Lee, director of media research at Deloitte, suggested that what makes television ads more memorable than other media ads is that they simply look better on the visual display. “It’s bigger,” he remarked.