TV viewers seem more immune to pitches for allergy medications this spring when compared to the year before, according to a new study from Nielsen IAG, which surveyed consumers on advertising recall.
When exposed to such ads this spring, viewers remembered them less than those surveyed in spring 2008. Overall, recall among allergy sufferers aged 25-54 for all the ads on air from January through May of this year was 10 points lower than the year-ago period.
That's not to say every ad in the category was unmemorable. An ad for Claritin featuring Nascar driver Carl Edwards was judged slightly more memorable than last year's top ad for the category, which featured the Nasonex bee (via BBDO). But the Claritin ad, from Euro RSCG, failed to motivate consumers to consider Claritin to the same degree as the Nasonex ad.
Why didn’t this year’s ads leave a strong impression? They just weren’t as good, said Fariba Zamaniyan, senior vice president at Nielsen IAG, Healthcare.
“This collectively weaker performance suggests that the creative strength of the advertising is not as strong as it used to be,” she said. “In these economic times especially, if you’re going to advertise on TV it has got to be memorable. In a high-clutter category like allergy, you can’t afford to miss. Being average isn’t good enough.”
There were more advertisers overall this year (nine, up from seven a year ago), but fewer ads (20 this season, down from 24 a year ago).
Ad spending for traditional media within the category from January to April declined 17 percent from a year ago, according to Nielsen. That’s in-line with spending declines in other categories, Zamaniyan said.
At the same time, allergy advertisers sought the efficiencies they perceived cable TV programming could provide. Nielsen said the allocation to cable ad spending during the January-April period increased 20 percent from a year ago.
Continue to next page →
