Fast shifts in the way Asian consumers interact with media (and the advertising and branding channels they provide for advertisers). Both markets and consumers in Asia are changing media viewership habits and exposure as mobile devices and the Internet make fast inroads into many Asian countries as mainstream media.

Traditional broadcast TV, and the newcomer satellite and cable TV channels are now playing a less predominant role in the leisure and business lifestyles of Asian consumers, particularly in the urban cities of East Asia, and more and more in South East Asian cities and rural areas. It is also causing a major reassessment of the meaning of "prime time".

Results of a consumer market research conducted by Research International Hong Kong released at the ActMediaAsiaCreativeFair 2002 on Thursday indicated that:

• Seventy Eight per cent of respondents did not pay full attention to TV commercials during commercial breaks, and only 10% could recall the controlled brand after watching a commercial break
• Consumers are becoming less attentive to commercial breaks. TV is no longer the center of attraction for family members.
• Instead of watching commercials, 36% of respondents said they chatted with family members, 25% switched channels (the remote control reigns! -Eds.), 35% washed dishes, 34% went to the toilet, 30 per cent ate something, 25% per cent read a magazine or newspaper, 15% talked on the phone and 8 percent surfed the web. (Totalling the percentages together it seems most people did, (on average) almost 2 things at the one time rather than watch the dreaded commercials! -Eds.)
• TV audiences in the Philippines tend to send SMS's (short text messages) on their cell-phones during commercial breaks, while viewers in Hong Kong preferred to surf (TV) channels as well as the Internet, or play computer games.

Rober Mebruer, regional marketing director and chief executive officer of ActMediaAsia stated that "We don't see the whole family in Asia watching TV together as they used to in the 90's".

On the changing concept of "prime time" Mebruer said that "Prime Time is really more of a 'frame of mind' when and where consumers are 'open' to receive brand information."

"...To build brands today..", said Mebruer, "...marketers need to advertise their products in an environment where viewers are primed to receive brand information..."

Increasingly, it seems that consumers are far more distracted then previously, when limited options for home entertainment were available. Other research has also indicated that attention spans are decreasing, meaning that brands and advertising need to fight to grab the viewers attention and continue to engage them while distractions from other media increase. This also may explain while cinema advertising is relatively healthy against broadcast media. Sitting in a darkened theatre provides less distractions, other than maybe the "date" sitting next to adolescent lads and the popcorn.

The consumer research was contracted by AdVantage Channel, a company which displays TV ads on both TV's on grocery shelves (Point of Purchase - POP) as well as on traditional broadcast TV, synergising the two media for brand recognition and brand recall. The two product categories researched were shampoo and soft drink - two common broad market consumer items - in 10 major retail stores in Hong Kong during March and April 2002.

Only 23% of traditional TV viewers watched the shampoo commercials during the breaks, while 22% watched the soft-drink commercials. However the figures for the shampoo and soft drink POP media was 73% and 48% respectively.

"Ad awareness" was five times higher for the Point of Purchase media than traditional TV for shampoo (perhaps understandable given that consumers in the store are far more targeted and disposed to attain product information), and four times higher for the soft drink product category.

Theoretically, AdVantage Channel's model has good promise as it associates branding (specifically brand awareness, recognition and recall) with Point-of-Purchase, completing the loop between branding and action. It also addresses the increasing loss of eyeballs during breaks on TV media - a worldwide rather than just an Asian phenomena caused by competing channels in the same of different media, and the remote control.

Practically, going by published reports, and of course noting that the research was commissioned by the client itself (commissioned research to prove the effectiveness of an approach results not so much in inaccurate data but sometimes subjectivity in the selection of research questions by the client), the research seems to back up AdVantage Channel's product.

[ Portions of this item were extracted from The Nation in a report entitled "TV viewing habits changing" by Kwanchai Runghapaisarn published October 18th 2002, press releases and conference notes ]