What viewers really do during commercial breaks

The next time you use the advertisement break in your favourite television programme creatively – by catching up on the paper or throwing together a bowl of pasta – remember one thing: you are not doing what advertisers want.

The people who produce television advertising and the industries who pay them have long worked on the assumption that people continue to watch television during the ad breaks. That way, they take a mental note of what is being advertised and go and consume it.

But new research shows many people switch off, particular during primetime shows – a blow to the multimillion pound advertising industry.

No doubt there is big money tied up in the business. About £3bn a year is spent on television advertising in Britain while in the United States slots in last week's Super Bowl cost $3m (£1.8m) for 30 seconds.

Last week, Pepsi's new Western-themed commercial, featuring David Beckham, other Manchester United stars and players from Real Madrid, was treated to a special premiere showing in Manchester.

Clearly, advertising using celebrities is always likely to recoup its outlay. A study last year showed that Jamie Oliver's commercials for Sainsbury's and Gary Lineker's for Walker's crisps, although costly to produce, generated many millions of pounds of extra revenue for these companies.

Butresearch conducted by the London Business School (LBS) suggests these and other advertisements may not be shown at the optimum time to have their desired affect. It also reveals people do many other things instead of watching television during breaks and that there may not be anything to gain from having large numbers of people sat around the television.

The LBS recruited six households to provide a spread of different audience types, including a retired couple, a single mother and a household of twentysomething office workers. Fly-on-the-wall video cameras and microphones were placed in their homes, linked to their televisions. They were watched for several weeks and the results edited to create videos of how each household spent the breaks. These results were analysed.

What emerged, according to Mark Ritson, assistant professor of marketing at the LBS, has fundamental implications. He said: "A commercial break is not a time when we watch advertising.''

In hundreds of examples, the viewers changed their posture when adverts came on and chose one of six activities: social interaction, reading, doing a chore, surfing channels, watching the television and interacting with adverts. Some of this was contrary to what those under scrutiny believed they were doing.

Researchers discovered two previously unseen strands of behaviour, Mr Ritson said. One was the so-called "friends" affect: The more people in a room during a break, the less chance there is they will pay attention to the adverts.

This runs counter to conventional theory that programmes that attract group watching – such as Friends – attract high advertising revenue. Equally, many adverts are targeted at a group of viewers. Just look at the James Oliver advertisements featuring his band of friends.

Mr Ritson said: "The first behaviour of a 'friends' audience when the break begins was often to engage in social interaction, typically at the expense of advertising viewing.''

The second discovery – the "late-night curve" – counters the prevailing wisdom that advertisers need to spend large amounts of money to buy expensive time during peak viewing hours, in the early evening.

Mr Ritson's research established that, as an evening progressed, people became tired, less liable to engage in other activities and were watching in smaller numbers. They were, therefore, much more likely to pay attention to advertising.

Mr Ritson said: "In a breathtaking example of ignorance and strategic naivety, advertisers have spent millions in the mistaken belief that they have purchased an audience for their advertising that never existed. In fact, they could have spent less money and ensured more exposure by buying spots that delivered a lonely, but more attentive viewer.''

The research does hold some good news for advertisers, Mr Ritson said. It found that many people did interact with adverts."We observed conversations about advertising executions and brand experiences, children singing jingles and even a game in which household members scored points by being the first to recognise the brand being featured in each ad," he said.

But it is just as likely for the interaction to focus around scathing criticism of the advert or product. "In many instances researchers observed a detailed discussion between individuals as one explained to others why the brand being featured was not worth purchasing or consuming – a case of advertisers paying to stimulate negative word-of-mouth about their brands,'' he said.

Mr Ritson says that existing methods of assessing what people watched – such as the Broadcasters Audience Research Board system, which assesses television viewing figures – assumed advertising audiences could be measured in the same fashion."We have shown that behaviour during commercial breaks is not the same as behaviour during programmes. And that one plus one often amounts to less than one,'' he said.

The advertising industry has poured cold water on the LBS research, arguing that they already possessed the information.

Ian Twinn, of the ISBA, the representative body for British advertisers, said: "The advertising industry spends an awful lot of money doing their own effectiveness research and they are aware of these problems. That is why you will see more and more advertising targeted at specific sectors such as the group market. The Budweiser adverts, for example, were a huge success and the phrase 'whassup' went around the world.''

Bridget Angear, creative director of Britain's biggest advertising agency, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, which produced the Oliver and Lineker advertisements, said agencies had always worked on the assumption that a lot of people would be distracted from watching commercials but that enough people would be paying attention to make it worthwhile. She added: "The great challenge for creative people in agencies is to make advertisements that grab the attention of those watching. We don't have a God-given right to have people watch our work. It is something we have to earn.''

What families do when the adverts come on

TALKING

In many households, this was one of the most common types of behaviour. For a married couple with children, it was an opportunity to catch up on the day's events. The young singles spent 47 per cent of their time during breaks in social interaction. Among groups observed, the more people who entered a room, the more likely it was that conversation not related to the advertising broke out. Most advertisers assume all the people in a room are watching.

READING

A large amount of time during the commercial breaks was occupied by reading. Viewers would keep something to read, a magazine or a television guide, within arm's reach, and as soon as a break began would resume their perusal. A retired bank manager in the study spent 22 per cent of his time reading during breaks, similar to the amount of time he spent on household tasks, surfing or actively watching.

HOUSEHOLD CHORES

Various household tasks, such as doing the cooking, ironing, cleaning or catching up on paying the bills were often what people turned to when the commercials came on, the researchers discovered. A single mother in the survey pointed out that the only way she could justify "wasting" her time watching a whole hour of television drama was by carrying out various household jobs during the commercial breaks.

CHANNEL HOPPING

The advent of multichannel television via cable or satellite has encouraged an activity which used to be restricted to only one, two or three options. The research found it was mainly a male activity using up to 25 per cent of the commercial break time, and was divided into two types. One was surfing through various channels; the second was a "visit" switch to a news or music video channel, for the duration of the commercial break.

WATCHING

Some people did actively watch the commercials being shown ­ up to 23 per cent of the time. But the most intense and focused viewing was observed to be later in the evening, mainly the last three hours before bedtime, as all the other activities ceased and people became more tired and more likely to be watching on their own ­ a phenomenon described by the researchers as the "late night curve effect".

REACTING

This was the stage where people not only watched the advertisement but discussed it with their friends or family, comparing their experiences and views or even singing along with the jingles. As the researchers noted, this is a double-edged sword for advertisers in that positive and negative discussions can arise. One of the young single housemates spent 15 per cent of her time talking about the advertisements with her friends.