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Advertisers losing audience in RP due to too many commercials


By ISAGANI DE CASTRO, JR.
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

The Philippines has too many advertisements on television, and consumers have adapted to it by changing channels and returning to programs they like just at the right time with their remote controls, a leading advertising executive said.

In an open forum at the 2008 World Marketing Conference at the SMX Convention Center, Emily Abrera, regional chair of the McCann Worldgroup Asia, said the Philippines has the highest commercial load per hour in Asia.

“We have the highest commercial load in the world. Certainly, it’s the highest in Asia,  and I think it’s probably one of the highest in the world,” she said.

In an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak, Abrera said the local advertising-industry prescribed limit is 18 minutes of commercials per hour, a level that is already highest in Asia. In other Asian countries, the limit is 12 to 14 minutes per hour.

Anti-ads behavior

Abrera said too many commercials have forced consumers to adapt, and they have developed behavior that is anti-advertisement. 

“You will note that people are continuously watching several channels simultaneously. And people are very good and have evolved this wonderful sense of timing so that they know that as soon as commercial come on, they go to the channel where they’re watching something else. So in other words, they’re tracking several programs at the same time. And they come back, almost as soon as that last spot is ending. They’re very good at that already,” Abrera said.

“When we overload with commercials, we are actually teaching people how to avoid them. We’re giving them the greatest reason how to avoid watching our work. And that is what worries me the most, that we’re losing our audience for our commercials,” she said.

Regulation needed

Abrera said there is a need for more regulation of these commercials in the Philippines. The regulation is supposed to be done by the advertising board in the Philippines and the broadcasters’ association, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).

“I still think we need to be regulated,” Abrera said. But she lamented that GMA-7 is no longer a member of KBP, “so we can’t hold them to the following guidelines.”

According to a content analysis-study done by De La Salle University students discussed during the open forum, GMA-7 has a commercial load of 30 minutes per hour while ABS-CBN has a commercial load of “15 to 20 minutes per hour.”

Abrera said marketing associations in the Philippines are “trying to find a balance” that would allow television networks to comply while reducing costs to advertisers. She said the balance is needed because “the fewer commercials we have, the highest cost it will be for a commercial minute or 30-seconders.”

New technology factor

She said the industry cannot continue with the same set-up of overloading consumers with commercials. “It’s something that needs to be addressed. And we cannot continue interrupting programs. Because that also interrupts viewing and creates a sort of a negative effect after a while.”

Abrera said new technologies such as mobile phones are partly to blame for the commercial overload.

“I don’t think it’s just in the Philippine setting. I think we’re just inundated with messages from everywhere, because also of new media, because we carry our phones all the time. So we get all sorts of offers, promotions. If you look at the billboards which are just all over the place, it’s as if there’s nowhere you can turn where there isn’t space that is occupied by a branded message. And this I think teaches us also how to tune off,” she told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

Creative ads

Abrera urged advertising and marketing firms to be more creative in their campaigns through ads that consumers won’t mind being interrupted with.

“We’re going to have to perform the job of entertaining, uplifting with a very subtle sell,” she said. “The message has got to be worth their time, worth their interruption.”

Abrera said young people know so much about producing videos these days that it makes the job of advertisers more difficult.

“They know so much about production that you’re going to have to show them something so interesting that they’re going to want to see it over and over again,” she said.

Abrera said another challenge is how to produce advertisements for computers or laptops, Ipods, and mobile phones, which consumers don’t want interrupted with commercials.

“The other thing we have to realize is, these new media—computer, the mobile phone, iPod—these are very personal, extremely personal.They’re extensions of the self, and so there’s a higher wall there that I think we have to scale, to enter,” she said.

This is a big change from the time when all advertisers had to do was “just buy and pay for the space and you can intrude on anyone at any given time." “Today, they have to give us permission to deliver our message,” Abrera said.

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