Digital Video Recorders and Inadvertent Advertising Exposure

Erik du Plessis

It has been argued that the 30-second TV advertisement is dead because owners of digital video recorders fast-forward though advertisements.

Digital Video Recorders And Inadvertent Advertising Exposure

Erik Du PlessisMillward Brown South Africa

BACKGROUND

Joseph Jaffe's 2005 book Life After the 30-Second Spot declared that the era of advertising dominance for the 30-second spot had come to an end. Digital video recorders (DVRs or personal video recorders as they are called in some countries) would become so common and so easy to use that television viewers simply would fast-forward through advertising messages.

Such pessimism, however, is balanced by a study of 1,000 U.S. households by Millward Brown. Of the 400 homes that had DVRs, there was no...

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