[HN Gopher] Commercials make us like TV more (2010)
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Commercials make us like TV more (2010)
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-08-17 15:07 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hbr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (hbr.org)
| mac-chaffee wrote:
| I think this is the paper they're talking about:
| https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/36/2/160/1942726
|
| Interestingly, they did control for the effects of TV that was
| edited with commercials in mind (cliffhangers, etc.) in "Study
| 2", where participants watched a 4-minute animation with and
| without interruptions.
| tryfinally wrote:
| On a similar note, I recall reading somewhere on the Unity blog
| that adding ads to a game supposedly boosts retention. I
| personally refuse to believe that the average mobile player's
| brain really is that rotten.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I have an extremely averse reaction when I feel like I'm being
| manipulated. There's not much I dislike more than that.
|
| When twitch gets past my ad blocker, I reflexively close the tab.
| And those are only a few seconds. For the same reason I would be
| unable to watch a TV channel that has ads.
|
| The article seems suspect to me. Possibly because I can't relate
| at all.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| havblue wrote:
| Most shows were filmed specifically to benefit from commercials
| at the time. You wonder what's going to happen after each
| cliffhanger. That's part of the fun. So if it's a show that
| wasn't filmed with that intent, like when they edited and spliced
| sex and the city for tbs, I'd imagine that users weren't as
| engaged.
|
| The title might as well be, "shows that are written specifically
| to have commercials are more entertaining when the commercials
| are kept in".
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >The title might as well be, "shows that are written
| specifically to have commercials are more entertaining when the
| commercials are kept in".
|
| Yes, but... I enjoy certain youtube content, oftentimes it'll
| be ripped tv shows. Nothing more annoying (but thank you,
| rippers) than the cut adverts being so obviously cut, in that
| there's a 15min intro, a build up, and then a ridiculous
| summary of 'the predicament' (which would have been after the
| ads) and bujld up.
|
| Did we really forget everything when adverts were shown?
|
| US shows are worse, probably because they showe more adverts?
| happyopossum wrote:
| > US shows are worse, probably because they showe more
| adverts?
|
| That's not necessarily the case - I remember growing up in
| Canada and having an extra 60-90 seconds cut from some of my
| favorite US TV shows to make room for even more commercials.
| I knew this because we'd vacation across the border and I'd
| get to see the full length original shows.
| stephen_cagle wrote:
| I think I remember reading that most tv was also accelerated
| like 1% or something so they could shove 1 more 15 second add
| in it. Also why the credits run by at 20x at the end of a
| film. :]
| toast0 wrote:
| > Did we really forget everything when adverts were shown?
|
| > US shows are worse, probably because they showe more
| adverts?
|
| When the adverts are shown, it's a good time to stop and
| consider if anything else is on and worth watching. You may
| stop on a different show and need to be brought up to speed,
| or have burned your short term memory with 50-150 channels of
| ads and garbage. I _think_ the US has a bigger percent of tv
| viewers with a pay tv subscription with a ton of channels,
| but I could be way off?
|
| Of course, some shows really don't have that much content, so
| they spend a lot of time rehashing what they already showed
| you.
|
| And then you've got online tv with commercials where they
| insert them almost, but not quite at the intended insertion
| points. Ugh, that's terrible.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Not only were the interruptions inside the episode important,
| the interruptions BETWEEN episodes was important. When these
| series are rewatched in marathon format, they just seem to have
| tons of cheesy unsatisfying twists, because there isn't the
| suspense of having to wait to see what happens.
|
| I agree that this observation doesn't nessecarily hold for
| modern media which was designed to be marathoned from the
| outset ad-free. Commercial Breaks now seem like much more of an
| afterthought instead of something actually woven into the
| scriptwriting, which only make commercials more offensive.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Can't wait till we look back and see the same thing for
| current shows and movies and then being designed for memeing
| and sharing on social media.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Lol, nice try assholes. But in all honesty, if you're the kind
| person that yucks it up to Big Bang Theory, then I'm sure you're
| gonna love this new Aflac commercial.
| ARussell wrote:
| I refused to ever subscribe to cable television because of
| commercials, and I suspect I am not the only one. I never
| subscribed to Hulu, either, for the same reason (if they have an
| ad-free offering now, I've missed it because I stopped paying
| attention to them). I also will not use Netflix's ad-driven tier
| when it comes out.
| undersuit wrote:
| I never paid for Hulu+ because the content I wanted had ads and
| the ads on Hulu are horrible. At least on broadcast and cable
| TV there's a mechanism to prevent the ads from getting stuck
| playing in a loop.
| [deleted]
| cshokie wrote:
| Hulu has an ad-free tier.
|
| We had to move to it because our kids have not experienced
| commercials and would get upset every time some came on. They
| just didn't understand interruptions to what they were
| watching.
| jjulius wrote:
| I should clarify that Hulu's "ad-free" tier isn't entirely
| ad-free. Certain programs may actually have an ad play before
| them, though usually I've only noticed this when, for
| example, Hulu has a deal with an existing channel to stream a
| show as soon as it airs on cable TV.
|
| Annoys the hell out of me that they continue to call it "Hulu
| (No Ads)". It really shows the level of respect they have for
| their customers.
|
| https://help.hulu.com/s/article/ads-no-commercials
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| At my mom's house I had fun trying to explain to my 4 year
| old that we couldn't pause the TV, and that even if we turned
| it off the show would keep going.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Clickbaity but it's not as thrashy as I expected. Yes, people do
| enjoy pauses for bodily functions and whatnot. Great science
| amelius wrote:
| > Great science
|
| Yes, a better approach would be to give a panel of test-
| subjects the ability to skip commercials and see how often they
| would use this feature.
| Lev1a wrote:
| > Just because we end up enjoying something more when it has
| commercials doesn't mean we expect to enjoy it more that way.
| DVRs appeal to us because prior to our viewing experience, we
| think we want no ads. It's only after we have the experience that
| we realize it's more enjoyable when it's interrupted.
|
| -----
|
| Basically: "You think you don't like ads but _we_ know you
| actually do like them deep-down. "
|
| > Jail is incomprehensibly horrible the first day. Eventually,
| it's less awful.
|
| > But if you let that prisoner out for a day...
|
| > That'd be practically cruel. You'd stop the adaptation and
| retrigger those initial feelings about jail when they had to go
| back.
|
| Yikes! "Don't mind being in jail for long, you'll get used to
| it."
|
| -----
|
| To me the only good point of this article is the last question by
| the interviewer:
|
| > What are you doing next? Trying to prove we actually love the
| dentist?
|
| -----
|
| What was the meme'd phrase again from one of the press
| conferences years ago? Something like "you think you do but you
| don't"?
| icehawk wrote:
| > What was the meme'd phrase again from one of the press
| conferences years ago? Something like "you think you do but you
| don't"?
|
| Yeah it was a Q&A session and the topic of adding servers to
| play original World of Warcraft. The full thing was
|
| "You don't want to do that. You think you do, but you don't."
|
| To to tell you how correct they were about this, Blizzard later
| added "World of Warcraft: Classic", which was popular enough to
| add "Burning Crusade Classic" severs, and will be adding "Wrath
| of The Lich King Classic."
| nullhack wrote:
| Can't wait for WoW Classic 2: ReClassed once WoW Classic gets
| old
| krsrhe wrote:
| Fnoord wrote:
| > > Just because we end up enjoying something more when it has
| commercials doesn't mean we expect to enjoy it more that way.
| DVRs appeal to us because prior to our viewing experience, we
| think we want no ads. It's only after we have the experience
| that we realize it's more enjoyable when it's interrupted.
|
| To me, this appears to be rose tinted glasses. We can pause
| 'TV' now, and do stuff in between like dishes or toilet. But we
| don't have to. No more forced commercials. Both are features I
| enjoyed in past with this technology called VHS. One thing I
| miss is certain jokes at school/work based on TV commercials.
| But that too is likely those glasses being rose-tinted. Cause
| nowadays we got memes. Many memes, handle it.
|
| I thoroughly enjoy the ability to have a video on my smartphone
| on the toilet, in bed or music or a podcast with my smartphone
| while doing chores/errands or either during commute. And the
| quality and availability and price of the streaming services is
| good enough right now (if it isn't I go back to piracy). Same
| with ebooks (though I use a Kobo; not Amazon).
| WalterBright wrote:
| > One thing I miss is certain jokes at school/work based on
| TV commercials.
|
| One commercial I remember was for shampoo for women. The girl
| who tries it gets a "hello Betty!" from the high school hunk,
| and she preens.
|
| For a while every Betty in my high school got that treatment
| :-/
|
| I suppose the commercial didn't actually work, because I have
| no recollection of what that shampoo was.
| Fnoord wrote:
| We (in NL) had a similar one with a girl on bicycle. "Pam,
| your hair is dancing" I guess it was Andrelon. Regardless
| the commercial does not give me a positive connotation to
| the brand, since commercials don't appear to influence me
| like that. Perhaps because I am on the spectrum?
| scrollaway wrote:
| I have met a lot of Ukrainian war refugees the past few months.
| What they all have in common is the adaptation to how bad
| things are in Ukraine, and when coming to safer countries,
| their mind readjusts and they realise what kind of fucked up
| shit they got used to and how unnatural it all was.
|
| Things such as "Don't mind the explosions, it's not my city
| block", etc.
| mynameishere wrote:
| scrollaway wrote:
| The people I've met, _with zero exceptions_ , miss their
| home and want to go back. One of them had just finished
| buying and decorating hers when the war broke out. Another
| I met _yesterday_ didn 't even leave until a week ago,
| because of all the chatter about the upcoming danger with
| Independence Day on August 24 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/Independence_Day_of_Ukraine).
|
| Who is your comment directed to, anyway? You're saying
| "just so you know", as if of the two of us, you met with
| more UA refugees than I have -- you clearly haven't talked
| to a single one. You're wrong, prejudiced, and frankly a
| little disgusting.
|
| Sorry, did I say a little? Hm.
| hedora wrote:
| Victim blaming is inappropriate.
|
| The refugees I know (none from Ukraine, though they were
| all victims of Russia-supported regimes) all liked their
| homes before they became war zones.
|
| They experienced starvation-related long-term health
| issues, having loved ones arrested, tortured and worse,
| being hunted for sport, etc...
|
| Whatever beefs they had with their local neighborhood prior
| to that didn't really enter into their decisions to leave.
| profile53 wrote:
| The subtext on this comment is rather hostile. Refugees
| anywhere likely want to leave because of the current
| situation, not because they always hated/disliked/whatever
| their country.
| xmonkee wrote:
| Did you leave your country and community because they were
| bombing your block? Nah, bro, I just love McDonalds.
| winternett wrote:
| GOOD commercials help to make us not mind watching TV because
| they can potentially create mental breaks at times, or inform us
| about things we're interested in... Heck, even TikTok is one big
| scroller for commercials of some sort, they just let the ones
| that aren't selling products at all trend most.
|
| In the 80s and 90s there were actually awards for creative and
| well composed commercials that were interesting to watch. Now we
| have commercials that stoke fears of chronic illness, overly-
| extended commercials, and nonsensical commercials that try to
| sell us too many things we don't want or need. Commercials are
| targeted at us in very creepy ways as well. Companies now are
| regularly ruining their credibility just to make one sale in
| commercials, and it's also not sustainable... Many companies run
| huge/expensive marketing campaigns and then quickly burn out
| after initial hype (For reference, look up "pink sauce" on
| TikTok).
|
| A big part of the problem in cheap advertising is that when it is
| available everywhere, it becomes inauthentic, low effort, and
| over-saturated... And the products and services are weakened by
| more emphasis on marketing than on quality and reputation.
|
| Commercials are killing everything now because they are all over
| the place. When we saw Blade Runner years ago, it was a dystopian
| ideal, but now companies would put big screens playing ads for
| lawyers, doctors, and even pharmaceuticals on ambulances if they
| could. It's spam. Ad spots are also even subtly being placed in
| content and shows on TV, it all has the psychological effect of
| alienation towards ads when it is overdone to where there will
| likely be a movement to reject technology and entertainment if
| the oversaturation continues.
|
| Commercials now are also far too repetitive and there are too
| many with each break. Back in the 80s, I recall a long stretch of
| time where there were only 3 max per commercial break. The price
| of ad space was higher, and only major companies sponsored ads.
| The bar is so low now that scammers and even influencers can buy
| ad space, and it creates far too much overload.
|
| Probably the worst part is that if you pay money for cable TV,
| you're also spending tons of time watching ads. It's like buying
| a device that 50% of the time does not do what you expected it to
| do, and that constantly tries to encourage you and manipulate you
| mentally to spend more money.
|
| Because the cost of living is high now, people are beginning to
| reject ads and desire more calm. If TVs and the Internet become
| spam machines, people will simply stop buying them and turn them
| off because there is a limit to how many ads people can tolerate,
| and companies really aren't properly respecting that.
| krsrhe wrote:
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I'm a child of the 80s and probably watched too much TV as a
| latchkey kid.
|
| I don't remember most of the TV shows on watches, but I
| remember many commercials. Some of them were really awesome.
|
| Commercials now are lousier, but streaming commercials are
| worse for some reason. I don't understand why MLB.tv
| commercials are awful, but if you watch the regional sports
| network they are better.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Ad spots are also even subtly being placed in content and
| shows on TV
|
| This has been going on since TV started. Perry Mason's
| revolving assortment of cars were provided gratis by car
| companies. Bullitt's car chase was an ad for the Mustang and
| Charger (a very effective ad, I might add). 1950s shows were
| always "brought to you by..." and the show itself would pitch
| the soap or whatever.
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