Ad Study Takes Upbeat View of Downbeat Shows

When war broke out in the Persian Gulf, advertisers from General Motors to Sears quickly pulled their television spots. Regardless of the tone of their ads or the products they were trying to sell, few wanted to push their wares next to stark news coverage.

And when television dramas deal with poverty, disease, death and destruction, networks are often hard-pressed to find advertisers. Take, for example, “Amerika,” a miniseries about the grim life in the United States after a bloodless takeover by the Russians. The show cost ABC a number of major advertisers--including Chrysler Corp.--even before the series aired in 1987.

For years, marketers have presumed that the best way to get people to pay attention to ads--and buy their products--has been to keep them smiling. So consumers are fed lots of happy ads that air during upbeat TV shows.

But decades of marketing research and a fundamental belief about the buying public may go out the window if Michael Kamins and his latest study are right. What Kamins has found is that advertising of a serious nature--placed on very serious TV shows--could be up to 30% more effective than lightweight ads that pander to shoppers’ sillier sides.

“Traditionally, the approach has always been, ‘don’t advertise a product on a program that’s sad,’ ” said Kamins, an associate professor of marketing at USC who coordinated the study. “But advertisers should know that just because a program is serious in content, that doesn’t mean the kiss of death for their product.”

In fact, in some circumstances, ads of a grave nature can even boost attention.

If the findings of the study prove to be accurate, many marketers may want to look much more closely at how they place--and create--a good chunk of the nearly $30 billion in ads that appear annually on American television.

The results could force some advertisers to consider much more carefully not only the content of ads but also the precise content of the shows during which the ads air. The repercussions may also apply to other media--including radio, magazines and newspapers.

The marketing study asked 120 volunteers to watch and comment on “happy” and “sad” commercials that were aired after “happy” and “sad” TV shows. The key to the study was how consumers reacted to the downbeat spot.

The downbeat ad, for an alcohol and drug treatment center, focused on a distraught woman who has a relative with a drug abuse problem. Half of the volunteers saw the ad aired after a chuckle-a-minute segment of a national talk show featuring interviews with exotic dancers. The other half saw the same ad broadcast after a tear-jerker segment of a national talk show, which included an interview with a homeless woman who lived in a car with her three children.

The reactions of viewers to the downbeat ad were clearly influenced by the show that aired before it. The approval rating of the downbeat ad was 30% greater by those who saw it aired after the interview with the homeless woman.

“People are much more empathetic when they see a sad ad on a sad program,” said Kamins, whose study is set to appear in an upcoming volume of the Journal of Advertising. “People in a serious mood can relate more to that kind of ad. They don’t have to make such a dramatic mood shift.”

At the same time, Kamins suggests, advertisers should reconsider how they test their ads before broadcasting them. Most advertisers simply show ads to groups of volunteers, then ask their opinions of the spots. But the research might be far more accurate if the test ads were shown to volunteers with the shows on which they will appear.

Just how the study could effect advertisers is uncertain. Generally, academic studies such as this are dismissed as irrelevant by agencies, which often prefer to do their own research. Although several researchers said they found the results of the study compelling, they aren’t sure if many advertisers can benefit from the findings.

Few advertisers have control over where their ads appear during a program, said Andrew Joseph Byrne, an El Monte-based marketing consultant. “You can have all the knowledge you want about how effective something is, but what good does it do if you don’t have control over it?”

The chairman of one of the largest research firms in Los Angeles also found the results intriguing--but not entirely convincing. Why create serious ads or advertise during serious programs, when viewers turn to TV for lighter fare?

“People don’t watch television for serious stuff,” said Arnold Fishman, chairman of Lieberman Research West. “They watch TV to be entertained. When they want to get serious, they read books.”

Briefly . . .

President Bush today is scheduled to speak live, via satellite hookup, to 600 delegates attending the American Advertising Federation’s annual conference in Nashville . . . Evans Rents, a Compton furniture rental company, has handed its $1-million advertising business to FotouhiAlonso Advertising & Marketing . . . National Lampoon magazine launches its first national TV ad campaign this month . . . Say s’long to Paul Hogan and g’day to golfer Greg Norman, who is the new spokesman for the Australian Tourist Commission.