TO ZAP OR NOT TO ZAP - A STUDY OF THE DETERMINANTS OF CHANNEL SWITCHING DURING COMMERCIALS

We present a conceptual framework to describe the commercial zapping p henomenon and use it to identify factors that influence channel switch ing during commercials. Drawing on previous research, published report s of practitioner gut feel, interventions used by advertisers to reduc e channel switching, and proprietary studies reported in the published literature, we describe how these variables might potentially affect the decision to zap a commercial. We use a latent class approach to mo del the impact of the identified factors on two aspects of the switchi ng decision-whether or not a commercial is zapped (modeled with a bina ry legit model) and, conditional on a zap having taken place, the numb er of seconds that the commercial was watched before being zapped (mod eled within the proportional hazards framework). The model is estimate d on telemeter data on commercial viewing in two categories (spaghetti sauce and window cleaners) obtained from a single-source, household s canner panel. The results from the empirical analysis show that househ olds can be grouped into two segments. The first, which consists of ab out 35% of households in the sample, is more zap-prone than the second . For this ''zapping segment,'' the probability of zapping a commercia l is lower for households who make more purchases in the product categ ory. Also, zapping shows a J-shaped response to previous exposures to the commercial, with the associated zapping elasticity reaching its mi nimum value at around 14 exposures and increasing rapidly thereafter. This finding suggests that advertisers should be cautious not to use m edia schedules that have excessive media weight or that emphasize freq uency over reach. We found that zapping probabilities for ads aired ar ound the hour and half-hour marks to be significantly higher than for other pod locations. Based on these results, we argue that prices for advertising pods located around the hour/half-hour marks should be bet ween 5% to 33% lower than those in the remaining portion of the progra m. We explore the impact of advertising content on zapping and find th at the presence of a brand differentiating message in a commercial cau ses a statistically significant decrease in zapping probabilities. Whi le the magnitude of this effect is small, the finding suggests that it may be helpful to include qualitative variables in future models of a dvertising response. We propose the expected proportion of time that a n ad is watched as a benchmark to compare 15-second and 30-second ad f ormats from a zapping standpoint. We found no significant differences between the two formats on this dimension. Our analysis also shows tha t, due to the impact of previous exposures on zapping, the use of 15-s econd ads runs a greater risk of reaching the threshold exposure level beyond which zapping probabilities start to increase. This implies th at while managers must be cognizant of the risks of overexposure for a ny ad, it is especially important in the case of the shorter, 15-secon d ad format.