What do you miss in an episode

    It is interesting that some of the most watched TV programs in the country are soaps/serials. Some of them are tear jerkers, some of them are hugely emotional dramas that can throw you out of your senses. Seeing them or asking around, some people indicate with a bit of disgust - "Who watches those serials. Only some sections (-they stereotype the users here-) watch them. I don't, its too boring, its too emotional, .... ".

    This had to be checked out. On further study, we find there are three types of watchers:

    The cool guys - When you check out with these "cool" guys about some of those serials, they know the story. They don't watch glued to it every day, but how do they know the story ? How do they know roughly what's happening ?

    Die Hards - And then, there are those loyal watchers who will do anything to not miss the episode, be it sickness, be it a function that overlaps the time in which case they will catch the repeat episode.

    The on and off folks - This section of people follow the program. They don't watch every episode, not every minute of those 30 mins, yet they are following the program and know whats happening. These guys bank on the fact that in an episode, some events happen, sometimes not even those, yet the story doesn't move much. "It doesn't matter much if you miss an episode".

   So, the following of a program, be it a stereotyped, boring one or not, if it is hitting the top charts of viewership, if it is being watched by your family but not necessarily you religiously, you are watching those and following those, no matter how cool you think you are.

   This got re-enforced when I recently saw an in-program embedded Ad of a top software platform in the world targeting prospective techie buyers, being demonstrated by the lead role inside of the program, which anybody would easily term an absolute tear jerker in a regional serial at prime time.

   Here seems to be another myth ready to be questioned on the target group viewership of serials. 

The swaying eyeballs from the TV

    While it is time to disrupt the Ad space with a level of mental engagement that is desired, it is time to focus on what is happening on the programs that these Ads are being played on.

    TV viewers are increasingly using their mobile devices/laptops during TV watching. A reliable survey in 2012 indicated that the percentage of people using Mobile devices while watching TV was 26% in India (about 60+% in the US). A survey that came out in late May 2013 indicated that this number has more than doubled this year with about 63% of the survey recipients across a cross section of the society are using their Mobile devices while watching the programs.

    A quick look at the number of tweets on IPL this year shows that over 5.5 million tweets were recorded on IPL during the season. While all of them did not happen while the programming on TV was live, the live tweet counter was running hot during the games as well.

    Does this happen during IPL games only ? I decided to check out a celebrated marriage on one of the top serials on Hindi television, that happened in June. The buzz in the Facebook pages and Twitter is huge. The Facebook page of the serial has over half a million likes and many times the number of visitors.

    There is serious interest towards digital content consumption and discussion happening around the TV programs. If the programs don't go digital savvy enough, the interest will go away along with the eyeballs, away from TV programming.

How does recall work

How does human brain recall ?

How does it recognize ?

Human brain searches in its memory through an associated tag which could be a question, a tagline, a sound/jingle associated with, a face of a person known for it, a logo, etc.

Advertisements have for long used these tagging mechanisms of jingle, celebrity faces, tag lines, stories and many more.

Human recall also works a bit like the DRAM, the more you recall, the easier it is to refresh and the longer it stays in top recall.

I was watching with interest all these factors at play, in a workshop that my nephew attended. A random student was picked from the crowd, taken aside for 10 mins, taught some techniques and then brought in front of a large crowd. Anybody in the crowd can mention a word or ask a question without waiting for the answer. This happens for about 25-30 words/questions. And this young boy, out of the blue, surprising his parents suddenly can recall back all the 30 words/questions in the same order, in the order of alternate numbers (1,3,5,7, ... ), from the end to the beginning, from anywhere in between. What happened to this boy in 10 minutes. How does he suddenly have a recall that leaves his parents astounded ?

Whatever was the technique used there, it had to do with tagging and recall. A good tag and a method of refresh will ensure a high level of recall and recognition. The magic is not in the person who recalls, but the method which creates the recall.

Can there be new methods to create such tags and recall in Ads ?