Eye tracking research by Harvard Business School professor Thales S. Teixeira and his colleagues shows that, "'pulsing' repeated, brief images of the brand can significantly reduce the likelihood that viewers will zap it, as opposed to showing the brand for long periods of time at the beginning or end of […]

Jim over at Manage This posted an interesting riff yesterday on ads that take a risk and make you think. It seems he's a sucker for the cerebral and asked for other ads or slogans that make you think. Well, I've got one that I believe takes a risk, but […]

A new study, as reported by The New York Times, shows that watching television programming with commercials make the shows seem more enjoyable to the viewers than watching straight through without commercials. It's interesting research and I understand the whole delayed gratification angle, but from my own experience it is […]

My wife and I like to play name-that-voice with the more and more celebs we hear doing voiceovers for TV commercials.  If you’ve been stumped lately, maybe this will help you settle an argument or two. I caught Kiefer Sutherland’s voice for Apple right away and thought it was the […]

As a parent of a 3 year-old, I can certainly relate to this interaction between BloggingBaby’s Sarah Gilbert and her son.  Seems the little guy is far more interested in the bag of brand name Cheetos than the already open bag of store brand Cheeto-like snack thingies.  Well, the bag […]

The British Heart Association has launched the Food4Thought campaign designed to give kids the real (and sometime scary) scoop on what they’re eating and how to make better food choices.  They aim to shock with images of raw, unprocessed ingredients in such fast foods as hot dogs, chicken nuggets and […]

Freakonomics blog points to a press release by the American Beverage Association outlining its new recommendations for cutting back on sodas in school vending machines.  While the idea is great, substituting soda for high-sugar (and thus high-calorie) fruit juice isn’t necessarily helpful as calories are calories.  They also list things […]

As a follow-up to this post, TiVo is now offering advertisers banner ads that remain on the screen in fast-forward mode.

In an effort to make television commercials effective even when seen through a DVR in fast-forward mode, research firm Frank N. Magid Associates suggests the following: Give an ad the “fast-forward test” to be sure “if people fast-forward they can decipher what’s going on” Use more text which can often […]

CBS Chairman Les Moonves recently discussed how he sees a significant increase in television product placements on the horizon.  He references selling rights to everything from the brand of car driven that to the brand of orange juice characters drink.  Interestingly, it wasn’t long ago that product brand names were […]