Battle Of The Brands – Who’s Winning The Ad Wars?

TiVo released its “Battle of the Consumer Electronics Brands” results at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas today.

TiVo has an interesting way to judge the competition. They use their Stop||Watch rating service to measure what commercials people are most likely watching. They do this by tracking which commercials their users fast-forward through versus which ones are played at normal speed.

This is the third year that TiVo has published the results of the “Battle”. TiVo uses the battle to demonstrate their marketing research capabilities. They can tell not just who is advertising the most, but perhaps who’s running the most effective and eye-catching ads. For us shoppers, it’s a way to see who’s getting the most buzz, and what other shoppers are interested in.

As Tara Maitra, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Content and Media Sales, said, “The results from this year’s report again showcase how in the age of on-demand television viewing it’s not necessarily the consumer technology brand who runs the most ads that’s the winner in terms of capturing eyeballs — it’s the one who finds a better way to keep consumers from picking up the remote and moving on to other content. As we saw in the case of Nikon dethroning Canon for the first time in three years: strategies that kept viewers more engaged in one’s ads vs. the competition’s that worked in the past didn’t, for whatever reason, prove the key to success this year.”

The competition is broken down into divisions and measured key players against each other.

In the gaming systems division, TiVo took a look at the Nintendo Wii versus Microsoft Kinect. Kinect won the competition with the fewest fast forwards. Perhaps because we all know what a Wii is, but the Kinect is something that many shoppers are still learning about.

In the retail outlets division, TiVo measured up Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Kmart. In the past Best Buy one this division, but this year Walmart came out on top. The Walmart ad with the least percentage of fast forwards was the “”Man carries big check” spot, according to TiVo.

In the digital camera division, the Nikon COOLPIX commercial beat out Canon and the GoPro Hero.

Then we have the Nintendo DS versus the Sony PlayStation PSP in the handheld gaming consoles division. The Nintendo DS won, with fewer of us skipping over their ads.

And for cell phone carriers, Verizon wireless one out for the third year straight, when compared again ads from Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T.


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Author Profile: Consumer Expert Faroh Sauder

Faroh Sauder has spent more than 30 years working as a journalist and educator. He has written on politics, international affairs, civil rights, and consumer education.

Now mostly retired, Faroh continues to stay current on tech and consumer issues and reports on his interests here at Consumer Press

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