Don't Sweat The Fast Stuff

According to a New York Times story by Louise Story, researchers at NBC claim commercials "work" even if you fast-forward through them. If true, that would mean advertising dollars could be reaped (careful on the spelling there) whether the ads are watched rapidly via digital video recorder (DVR), or in the more seemingly ordinary pace of so-called ordinary time (in itself, an intriguing theological term).

These new studies don't merely measure eyeball movement; they track biological reactions such as sweat (formally called "skin conductance"), heartbeat, abdomen or chest movement (to see if you hold your breath), erectile tissue, and wiggling in your seat. (Here's a pop quiz: one of those measurements in the preceding list was tossed in there just to see if you're awake. Which one? It's not hard. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)

The buzzword for the viewer's response is "emotional engagement." Ponder the implications of a few of these seismic quotations:

"Whether people watch or not is not a useful measure of anything." -- Joe Plummer, chief research officer for the Advertising Research Foundation

"People don't turn off their emotional responses while they're fast-forwarding." -- Carl Marci, chief science officer of Innerscope Research


"You've created a message that in theory requires 15 seconds or 30 seconds to get that selling message across. On a high-speed DVR, 30 seconds gets pushed down to 1.5 seconds with no audio. It just wouldn't work." -- Jason Maltby, president of MindShare North America

It was bound to happen. The world spins ever faster. "The centre cannot hold," to quote William Butler Yeats.

So much for sound bites instead of political or intellectual discourse; now we have vidbits. So much for character development; now we have subliminal stimulants. So much for linear plot; now we have streaming slides, no sound, please. So much for instant messaging; now we have IMage-racing.

I've gone on too long. You have no time for forays into verbal foreplay or airplay. Research says I've lost you already. Research says, you are not moist with the sweat of excitation. Your screen has gone black, just as in the last episode of "The Sopranos."