Who’s Watching?
Oct 24 by Anton Mercier
Cultural insight
As a family, we recently finished following all of Jack Bauer’s exploits. Yes all six “seasons”, so at 24 hours a piece that’s 144 hours of television. Nights of just squeezing in the 3rd episode in a row are becoming a distant memory. It was great while it lasted, although admittedly series six was a bit pants but it’d have felt rude to abandon Jack in his hours of need.
Anyway it got me thinking.
I say I don’t watch television. I don’t have time. Yet how can we have managed to consume so much of 24. Well, the answer is simple, it’s taken us since January.
According to the latest IPA figures, the UK average, daily viewing is 3.97 hours, so that makes us, as a household, real lightweights. However, and it’s a big one, I watched 24 on DVD so in all that time didn’t watch one ad. In a house groaning with AV technology, Sky +, Apple TV and with iPlayer becoming ever more refined, it’s really easy, once you make the transition to digital, to not see any brand communication.
In fact, it occurs to me that the only person in our household who’s actually watching ads is my five year old, more because he’s a bit of a novice with the remote than anything else (evidenced by some of the odd stuff that ends up being recorded on Sky +). And as he rejects anything vaguely girly or non-car related, it means he’s a fairly challenging target to reach as an advertiser.
So if you’re the maker of shoes – with cars in the heel – then absolutely TV works, we’ve got the perfect consumer at home. But beware, Clarks Yotoy have got there first.
