At the end of the day, families wind down in their living rooms in front of television surfing through sports, news channels, entertainment, and more to see what’s on. A recent research highlighted that TV screens drive the highest advertising recall, that is, 34% more than ads seen on a computer, 60% more than on a tablet or smartphone.
The Thinkbox’s recent study Context Effects, jointly conducted by Map The Territory and Tapestry Research, pointed out that the living room is the environment at home that’s best suited for advertising to excel. It established that high quality, professionally-made video content drives 60% higher ad recall than non-professional, and people are 44% more likely to trust advertising seen within professional content. The study found that TV is the social medium, whereby 44% of TV is watched together with others, compared with 10% for YouTube.
Moreover, the researchers said the living room offers by far the most powerful combination of factors – watching professional video content, the TV screen, being with company, our mood – and is the environment at home that’s best suited for advertising to succeed. They said respondents had significantly better ad recall when they experienced advertising in the living room, than in any other room of the house.
Matt Hill, Research and Planning Director at Thinkbox, said TV is the social medium which brings people together and gets ads talked about. “Every night there are nearly 5 million conversations about the ads on commercial TV. Great planners have long argued the case for the power of context and this study provides the proof that it really does make a huge difference – even room to room. What’s clear from this research is that TV is uniquely placed to deliver the context that delivers memorability: big screen, professionally produced, viewed together, and mood enhancing.”
Andy Davidson, Co-founder of Map The Territory, said to understand why advertising is so effective in the living room, there is a need to understand why people are there. “We learned that people don’t only gather to watch TV, they also watch TV to gather. In this context all shared content, from the hot new drama to a regular video ad, is working in the higher service of bringing that household a little closer together.” Davidson explained that ads are more accepted, relevant, enjoyed and ultimately more memorable. “In contrast, social media, is ironically, much more personal, and this anti-social content – and advertising around it – is less suited to the shared living room environment.”
Ian Wright, Joint Managing Director of Tapestry Research, acknowledged that understanding the impact of context on ad recall is difficult to do, and not something that can be measured through direct questioning of consumers. “Instead, we asked viewers a number of simple questions – such as ‘what did you watch yesterday?’ and ‘who were you with?’ – and then used advanced modeling techniques to understand what’s going on in people’s homes, in relation to ad recall. What emerged was that the living room offers a complex and powerful set of factors that combine to drive higher ad recall.”
The study also stated that ad recall is much higher from occasions involving professionally-produced content compared with non-professional content, with 60% higher ad recall for professional content vs. non-professional content. It explained that seeing advertising within professional video content not only directly drives ad recall, but also indirectly. Professional content is enjoyed more by viewers.
Furthermore, the study established that people are more likely to remember advertising if they see it on a big screen and are likely to enjoy the occasion more. Audio quality also plays a significant role, as well as the size of the screen. Ad recall increased by 23% when watching with others. This reflects the importance of shared environments to advertising performance. The study highlighted that advertising that is placed around non-professional content is better suited for personal, more targeted tastes.
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