Study finds commercial-skipping DVRs don't affect purchases, 'TiVo effect' may not exist
By Sean Hollister 
posted May 6th 2010 9:19PM
posted May 6th 2010 9:19PM
Moreover, every attempt the researchers made to find a "TiVo effect" failed -- comparing those who had DVRs with those who didn't, they found no significant difference in the amount TV watchers spent on nine different goods (including cleaning and grooming products) advertised. This could be for a variety of reasons -- perhaps advertising doesn't work, period, or perhaps those without DVRs "skipped" commercials simply by walking out of the room -- but no matter the reason, it seems these days television advertisers don't have quite so much to fear.
Update: To address one of the comments below, the 1,200+ TiVos measured in the study were given out to participants free of charge, which researchers admitted might skew the results. However, comparing usage patterns of the participants to TiVo's own national usage statistics, Duke scholars actually found them similar.
@Castaa
I do the same. The show doesn't start until 20 after.
Guys lets just let them believe whatever they want so they won't have to find a new way to make money off of us, *happily skips commercials*
A few years back I went to a research session with a number of Tivo users. Basically the people driving the thing were trying to question us about ways to make us watch adverts and stop skipping over them..
They were asking questions like.. if a product sponsored a movie would you mind being forced to watch adverts (hell yes!) How would you feel if you could skip 1/2 the adverts in a comercial break?
They hated me... I ruined their stats that Tivo users were evil freeloaders and never watched adverts..
I did so by explaining you didn't need to see an advert every single 15 minutes to get the message.. in fact you didn't even need to think you're watching them, you'll still get the message. The rest of the group, who hadn't cottoned on to the "real" purpose of the interview claimed they always fast-forwarded through adverts and never watched them..
I then ran off a list of current adverts and every person in the group could recite what the advert was about, what was said and details of the featured product / service.. Started hmming the jingle and they could all finish it.. describe the actor in the commercial and they could tell me the product.. The other Tivo users were surprised that, though they claimed they never watched adverts, they were actually able to remember many very clearly..
The researcher/interviewer really tried hard NOT to ask me questions after that as it was really skewing their stats..
Still, I got £50 for the privilege :)
Good evening on the whole!
I don't buy things because TV tells me to. I was raised on TV and I turned out TV.
I use Media Center as a DVR, and unless I am watching something live (which is rarely), I always skip the commercials. If I am watching live TV, I use the mute button about 90% of the time.
Between DVR use and adblockers on all my browsers, I hardly see any commercials. (IE only at work for things that only work in IE) As a matter of fact, if my co-workers talk about ads or new products they saw on TV, Most of the time I have no idea what they are talking about.
In my case, I can't remember buying anything recently based on advertising.
Can a Tivo can tell the difference between live TV with the TV on and live TV with the TV off? In my home, my Tivo is playing live TV (because you cannot turn the Tivo off) with the TV in the off position. I think the study is a little flawed ...
@ultrajones
Never seen a TiVo in the flesh, why can't they be turned off? Or perhaps how
Guess I'm in the 5% because I never watch live tv and always skip commercials.
@Mr Pips
That's two of us in the 5% category. What's the point of having a TiVo if you're not going to skip commercials.
I'm skeptical. If these people went out and bought a Tivo, what did they buy it for if not to record shows for later viewing and to skip commercials??
@Xax
They didn't buy it. Free TiVos were supplied to them.
I think this further skewed the survey. Firstly, you're dealing with new users (less than 24 months of TiVo service), so they're not used to skipping commercials and may have even taken months to figure out how to do it well. Secondly, you're dealing with a bunch of people that didn't get a TiVo until is was provided to them for free, so they obviously don't mind commercials that much.
This is a huge NO DUH for me. If I like what I see in a commercial (even if it's fast-forwarding) I'm more likely to buy it. If I don't care about what I see, I'm less likely to buy it. If it's fast-forwarding and it looks interesting, I'm going to stop and see what it's about.
It's not about how many commercials we're seeing, it's about what's actually in the commercial. If you show three commercials in a program and they're all something I want and I can afford to buy them, you will have a 100% success rate. If it's nothing but crap, it will be 0%. Considering I hate watching crap, I would much rather have COMMERCIAL TARGETING for me, because at least I will be interested in the subject matter.
@dhinged
Wow, sounds like you buy a lot of stuff. I guess you're doing your part for the economy.
I'm with Sporkinum in that I rarely see commercials, but I can tell you it is rare that I buy anything that is even advertised. Not just because advertising is a turn-off, but because quality products usually aren't advertised. E.g. organic vegetables. Advertising is usually a sign that something isn't good enough to buy on its merits alone; they pay money to try to convince you to buy it.
I've also found that buying things I want doesn't actually make life any better, so with few exceptions I've stopped buying things I want and just get things I need.
@Shigawire No, actually, I don't buy a lot of stuff, and in fact compared to the amount of commercials I see/hear/overhear, I rarely buy anything. The fact is though that sales doesn't require a high percentage to rake in the profits... most sales are in the single-digit percentile.
What I'm trying to say is I buy stuff that looks appealing to me (again, if I can afford it, and yes, I have a savings account) and I ignore stuff that doesn't, and the vast majority of commercials don't look appealing to me. It wouldn't matter if I fast-forward through most commercials, if I see something I like, I stop and watch it. I bought the Droid because the commercials told me enough about it to know it was something I wanted. I tend to do more research than the average person, but again, I'm more likely to buy something if the commercial shows something interesting to me.
The whole point of my post is that advertisers will have more success if they TARGET their audience, which means TiVo should be sending stats back to the service providers on what is being watched/skipped, and commercials should be placed to target the viewer. How many banners do you ignore and which ones do you actually click? If we were targeted with things that we were interested in, we are more likely to buy.
@dhinged
True, targeted ads would sure be better than untargeted ads. But no ads at all is even better. Banner? What's a banner? You should check out Adblock.
@dhinged I do the same thing. If I see something interesting flash across the screen, I go back and watch it. And since I watch a lot of TV, I still end up watching plenty of commercials.
So besides the fact these numbers make no sense isn't anyone a little curious why Duke is researching the "TiVo effect" ? Couldn't they be doing something more useful for society? My guess is the researchers did a shill study for some TV network that wanted the data to show to their ad buyers. Look! Duke says people who use DVRs don't skip ads. It's science! Give us money now.
Would people who leave the receiver/tivo on all day while their TV is off affect the results of this study?
why would anyone wanna downgrade from bittorrent to tivo?
I really hope the dvr makers believe this study so they don't implement skip free ads. Because the only commercials I watch are the dos equis ads and that's only if I see it in the course of my fast forwarding or skipping.
"Moreover, every attempt the researchers made to find a "TiVo effect" failed -- comparing those who had DVRs with those who didn't, they found no significant difference in the amount TV watchers spent on nine different goods (including cleaning and grooming products) advertised."
No shit. The amount I spend on stuff like that depends on how much I need to clean and groom myself, not on what kind of box I have under my TV. They really needed a study to determine this?
I hate watching live TV because of commercials.
Why would you watch commercials if you could skip them? Why would you buy a DVR if you're not recording shows?
Well, they didn't poll me. I never watch stuff live. I wait 15 minutes for a current 1 hour show, so I can skip ads.
i do see some cute ones I go back and watch, so for advertisers, make them cute and I'll watch them. do it at 30 seconds in, so I get a peek at them.
:-)
Two possibilities:
The study has been paid for by the advertising industry
or
This is proof positive that advertising in TV does not work most of the time. Skipping or not, people dont buy the crap just because the TV tells them so
This doesn't add up. I call shenanegins.
or people just don;t listen to TV commercials. I don't know about you but I don't buy and iPhone form the commercial but it will remind me that its out there.
The thing is, fast forwarding the commercials requires you to actually sit there and watch them, albeit skimming by. Most of us will be familiar with the scenario where an advert catches the eye and then you've ended up rewinding to see what it was about. Compare that to the non-PVR world where when forced to wait for duration of the adverts, the viewer would often just change channels or get up and make a cuppa and not see the adverts at all.
that pretty much indicates tv commericial is not that useful
As an author of this study, I am following this discussion with interest. A couple of reactions to some key themes in the thread:
[1] No money went to Duke or I. I would not take it if offered! We simply set out to measure how bad the DVR effect is and those who ran the study knew this. The null effect was a surprise to us and them.
[2] Like many of you, I forward every occasion I can! To clarify the discussion, it is not that 5% of people forward, but rather 5% of viewing occasions are recorded as opposed to live. Most people record and/or forward at least some. Another metric, percent of viewing time recorded (as opposed to occasions) is closer to 10%. Still it is not large and other studies I reference in the paper show the relative rate of recorded viewing is lower than indicated by surveys. This skipping behavior is instead observed from the DVR log files of the panelists.
Finally, consistent with most comments here, 2/3 of recorded ads were skipped. When recording occurs, skips are the norm.
[3] It is a good point and insight that those with a free DVR are not the same as those who buy one and have owned it a long time. We compare both groups and find that those given a DVR do use it slightly less than those who already owned one, but not substantially so. Moreover, we observe behavior for two years after receiving a free DVR; and by the second year use is pretty close. My conjecture is that there is ample chance to learn over two years.
Another analysis we did instead compared purchases of the group that already owned a DVR (as opposed to those that got a free one) to those that were did not have one and found little difference in sales. However, the sample size was a bit small to be reliable and the experimental design is such it can not rule out other trends that could affect sales.
[4] I also like the comment that DVRs have no effect on sales because ads have no effect on sales. We checked this. Looking at those who owned DVRs, we find a positive link between ad exposures and sales in line with past research.
[5] Also of note, we tracked purchases of households over 3 years across 40 categories; one year prior to the free DVR and 2 years after. Not only do we find no difference in the change in sales of advertised or private label brands between the DVR and no DVR groups, but the level of statistical confidence is very tight.
[6] It is also a good point that statistics can be bent to say most anything. So the goal is to try as hard as one can to "break" the results. As the paper indicates, we did many such analyses and find the same null results. With luck, the work will generate more analysis by others and if the results do not hold, that is fine; that is how good science works!
In sum, I think this is the most complete study I know of to date on the DVR effect, but hopefully it is far from the last.
Thanks for the interest.
@cfmela
Thanks for taking the time to explain the results of your study. Maybe the guys on the Engadget HD Podcast could have you on as a guest.
Perhaps the results are skewed because these aren't folks who actually went out and bought a DVR as a result of need, want, or research?
I'd say I watch 1 show PER MONTH that is live, and even then I will wait 15-20mins before watching. Always FF commercials and rarely stop to check any out. Kinda funny when someone tells me about a commercial they saw..
What the study shows is that commercials are very effective in getting you to buy something. People that use a dvr skip commercials just like those who watch change the channel when commercials come on.
Yeah, where is the basis of this research? I almost never watch live TV. Ever. What's the point in having a DVR then?
Somehow, I think marketing people are misguided. There are many people out there that realize that a portion (;)) of advertisements are marketing glitz designed to appeal to basal instincts in an attempt to get you to buy a product. Take, for instance, the products that are advertised at the price of "Only $19.99". If you have bought one of those, I would say that there is a good chance that you found it did not live up to the marketing hype and is sitting on a shelf somewhere, unused, and you wonder why you wasted your money on it.
In subsequent advertising that is similar, you eventually realize that there's a catch and that catch makes the value of what you are getting significantly less than the advertised cost. As audiences become smarter and smarter, the fallacious associations made by marketers become significantly easier to recognize. In addition, today's economy likely has more and more people buying items based only on need and not what some fallacious advertising tries to make you think you will become or how much easier your life is when you buy the product.
Personally, I NEVER buy anything based solely on seeing it in an advertisement. I usually research what I buy, and if my research finds that the product does not meet advertising claims, I will not buy.
If I were forced to watch commercials (like Time Warner's chief exec suggested people be forced to do a few years back), I would probably stop watching TV.
To me, it seems like most commercials these days are for medications that I do not need and do not want, and I am tired of them.
I do own a DVR, I time-shift most everything I watch, and I extensively use the buttons that allow me to skip commercials.
In addition, I hate "snipes" that appear in programs. Since I have no control over them, I have trained myself not to read them. I only wish content providers would figure out that there are likely other people out there like me who do the same, and that their reasoning in showing them is flawed. Just because I am watching one show on a particular station does not mean that I will have any interest in watching something else on that station at some other time. To me, watching TV is largely a waste of my time, so I am extremely picky about what I watch.
Perhaps a study should be done that studies whether or not current advertising models actually work. I am wiling to bet that if such a study were done, it would find that at least some current advertising does not work, and perhaps most current advertising does not work.
Maybe that is what this study is alluding to, but no one has yet asked that question.
I don't believe this for a second... but a good ad can still get through to me, as I still stare at the screen while TiVo fast-plays the commercials.