Skipping TV Commercials Illegal in Japan?
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Written By Reprise Media | July 18, 2005 | Share This
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Clear your calendar and get ready to spend some quality time with the AFLAC duck, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and the Snuggle bear. August 28th has been designated as TV Commercial Day in Japan as a way to show viewers the importance of advertising.
It all sounds pretty benign, until you read stories like this one that have influential figures like President of the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters Hisashi Hieda regarding commercials and programs as one product and likening commercial avoidance to an illegality:
“Skipping the commercials would amount to a violation of the Copyright Law.”
The ability to fast forward through commercials that TiVo and other on-demand systems have given consumers is expected to result in TV ad revenue losses of $480 million for the year 2005 alone.
Far from being the ad menace that many marketers initially made it out to be, TiVo is experimenting with new ad formats designed to make advertising more interactive for users.
The firm announced today the addition of an interactive feature that allows users to click through to receive more information about a product or service. BetaNews has more on the upgrade, which will allows subscribers (as well as those ham-fisted with the remote) to send their contact info to advertisers with a simple click of a button. Symbols will identify advertisers during commercial breaks, making them more visible even when a customer is cruising through on fast forward.
Sounds kind of like search advertising, the main difference being that searchers aren’t necessarily closed off to the idea of buying something, whereas most TiVo subscribers are using the service specifically to get away from ads. For that reason, analysts are uncertain whether this one will work.
(link via Mike at Techdirt)
Topics: Advertising: Offline |