Are fast-forwarded ads engaging? Maybe that’s the wrong question.

When I read this story the other day, I of course thought it was nuts:

Judging from the biological reactions, test subjects were just as engaged while watching fast-forwarded advertisements as they were while viewing opening scenes from the NBC show “Heroes” at regular speed.

In other words, those ads you blast past with a DVR fast forward button are as “engaging” as the ones you used to sit through. The source of this research is NBC, which wants to convince advertisers that the money they pay for commercial time isn’t being thrown away just because a certain percentage of the audience fast-forwards past the spots.

Absurd, right? Just more desperation from networks trying to salvage their business model. And that may be the case.

On the other hand, while a fast-forwarded ad may not be as engaging as an actual, watched ad, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has no effect at all.

One of the big mistakes that people often make about advertising is that it works (or fails to work) in purely rational or linear ways. That is: Consumer sees ad; consumer is persuaded; consumer goes to store and buys product. Of course, that almost never happens. The brain is a complicated thing, and as you probably know, a great deal of the work it does takes place at a non-conscious level. One famous book on this general subject is Timothy D. Wilson’s Strangers To Ourselves, which was a major (cited) influence on the best-seller Blink. It’s not a book about advertising by any means, but I belatedly remembered and looked up one passage that’s relevant here.

Basically Wilson makes the point that regular advertising often works the way that people believe subliminal advertising (naked figures in ice cubes in a liquor ad or whatever) works: By communicating with the non-conscious part of the mind.

People fear subliminal advertisements (which have no effect) more than everyday advertising (which often has powerful effects) because they worry that they will be influenced without knowing it. But ironically, everyday advertisements are more likely to influence us without our fully recognizing that we are being influenced. It is not as if we go to the drugstore and think, “Should I buy the house brand or Advil? Well, if Advil is good enough for Nolan Ryan, it’s good enough for me…” Instead, we might find a name brand more comforting or familiar and not realize why we feel that way. So we shell out the extra cash for something that is no different from the house brand…

A failure to recognize the power of advertising makes us more susceptible to it … because we are likely to lower our guard while watching commercials or fail to avoid them altogether. …

He adds that he and a colleague in one study (which I haven’t read) used the term “mental contamination” to describe the process, “because our minds can unknowingly become ‘polluted’ with information we would rather not have influence us.”

The upshot is that while maybe you’re not engaging with that Taco Bell ad the same you would if you were sitting there hanging on every word. But a) how often do you hang on every word of an ad even real time, and b) even at super-fast speeds, you may still processing the fact it’s a Taco Bell ad. Does that mean you’ll march like a robot to Taco Bell afterwards? Of course not. But maybe Taco-Bellness has taken up one or two more bits of your nonconscious mind just the same, and maybe that will make a difference later without you ever consciously thinking about it. (And maybe the more certain you are that you’re ad-proof, the more likely it is to occur.)
A little esoteric-sounding, perhaps. But the point is that it is possible that a bit of “mental contamination” is getting through after all. And if it is, then maybe advertisers do owe networks something for such scenarios — because delivering such “pollution” is the name of the game.