Viewers tolerate longer adverts, but say 10 ads per hour “significantly intrusive”
A research report into advertising tolerance suggests that viewers will accept lengthier ad breaks, but are resistant to high volumes of interventions, across TV, online TV and when browsing the net.
More than 10 adverts per hour is "significantly intrusive"
It found that viewers will accept up to 18 minutes of advertising per hour on online TV, but considered ten 30-second ads per hour whilst browsing to be “significantly intrusive.”
The conclusion was published in “Getting the balance right: commercial loading in online video programs” by Associate Professor Steven Bellman, PhD, the deputy director of the Audience Labs at Murdoch University in Australia.
"For years, we've heard the argument that people won't tolerate ads in online content and will jump sites to ad-free content or will download illegally, but our research on web-based video viewing shows that people will accept a certain number of ads," Bellman said.
“The paywall experiment has been tried in the industry before, here and abroad, and hasn’t worked.
“Unless you’re the Wall Street Journal, which has exclusive content valued by business, you’re better off looking at a new approach.
“With broadband, newspaper content online is looking more and more like TV, perhaps it’s time for outlets to test the waters of showing TV ads that interrupt online content.”
The report suggests that viewers online have a higher “product recall” than TV.
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