We are all doomed
A while ago I stole a chart from the planning chief at Grey, John Lowery, and posted it. Well John can’t have been too miffed as he has updated it for the 2006 data and sent it over. If you work in advertising (like me) the message is blatantly clear.
I should probably say that this is data from the very wonderful TGI and they will probably ask me to take it down. But maybe if they realise that this is as blatant an attribution as I can create and you are all potentially extremely valuable clients for them they will be nice and give me an opensource break.
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Its a highly interesting chart, but to gauge it fully we need to see what people’s opinions of programmes are compared to past years.
The vital thing is that because it is a yearly thing, there is no “nostalgia” element to this data.
And since the programmes are getting worse…..
Celebrity Big Brother, Soapstar Superstar, Eastenders… quality programming. *cough*
Perhaps they think the ads are now better than the programmes.
Genius Lebowski, of course that is it!
Programme quality peaked in 1991 with the launch of Noel’s House Party/regular Bullseye. It’s all been downhill since then.
Seriously though, it is interesting to note. I think it’s a sign that people want to be entertained by ads above all else.
Some advertising people insist that people buy television sets for the ads. How are television sales comparatively?
Is anyone still watching TV?
I am and I love it.
I suspect the time I spend watching TV is has been greater over the last 3 years of PVR ownership than over the previous 3 years.
But I am watching 90% of Tv from the disk(excluding childrens TV which is almost all live)
And fast forwarding virtually all commerical breaks.
Is anybody paying attention to the scale on the axis?
From 12 to 34. It very nicely overstates a (for you ad guys, not for mediaconsumer-me) horrible decline of maybe 50% as a catastrophic decline of 90%.
Curiosly, while attitudes towards advertising seem to be on the wane, attitudes to ads are holding up…from MBs Link testing (sorry to mention it here), ads are, overall, enjoyed as much today as they were ten years ago.
So what is going on? My guess is that it is the amount of advertising that is overwhelming people. But that the creativity within individual ads is as strong as ever.
So – maybe that argues that, since the quantity ain’t going down, they ads need to be even better than they were before….