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Professors Discover TV Commercial "Mood Mismatch"

milkovasa
/
fotolia.com

Does it really take a study for us to know that TV commercials sometimes annoy consumers, or that commercials are sometimes ignored? Apparently, yes. 

Well they’ve finished another study of advertising. Guys at Babson Institute in Boston studied mood mismatch between TV shows and the commercials that interrupt them.

To absolutely no surprise they discovered that when people are watching a show in a "de-activated mood," they’re more likely to skip or ignore high-energy commercials. This they call mood mismatch, and they say when it occurs, viewers also are less likely to remember the brand advertised.

That may not be as big a problem as they think, because, frankly, it’s gotten very hard without mood mismatch to figure out what the brand is on a lot of TV spots.

At any rate, as good professors can be depended on after every study, they have some advice: they suggest that advertisers make two sets of commercials. One set will be low-key for deactivated viewers; the other set of commercials can still be high-energy for non-de-activated viewers. Another of their blinding glimpses of the obvious is that viewers rate very energetic commercials hard to watch.

So advertising study Number 8,436,542 has uncovered breakthrough data. We don’t like to watch raucous TV spots, and we like watching them even less in a deactivated mood. I presume because those raucous commercials keep waking us up.

Marketing consultant John Malmo grades current business activities based on over 50 years in advertising and marketing. To ask Mr. Malmo Your own question, visit http://askmalmo.com.

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