Less television advertising increases impact

The second Publisuisse advertising impact study confirmed the results of the first study from 2003: the fewer advertising blocks are broadcast in a program and the shorter the blocks are, the greater the viewer's attention and memory for the individual TV commercial. In the period from June 2004 to May 2005, the Telecontrol data of the SRG-SSR channels were compared with those of foreign private channels. With 56 minutes of advertising per day, SF 1 was far behind the German private stations, which broadcast up to 4 hours of advertising per day. There were also clear differences in the length of the blocks: on the private channels, almost 90 percent of the advertising blocks are longer than 3 minutes, compared to only 55 percent on Swiss television. This has a direct impact on the proportion of viewers who watch the entire commercial break. The shorter the commercial break, the higher the proportion of viewers who watch the commercial break in its entirety. The results for contact quality were also confirmed in the second study. Frequent interruptions of the program by advertising are perceived as negative. Of the private broadcaster observer group, 90 percent of respondents stated that the amount of advertising was clearly too much, while 50 percent felt that the amount of advertising on Swiss television was just right. 16 out of 18 respondents in the Swiss television comparison group remembered the commercials better than those in the private broadcaster comparison group. As Publisuisse concludes in its annual report, this shows that advertising in reasonable doses is accepted by viewers and remembered much more strongly.