Abstract:

Twin Commercials are rapidly becoming popular in the Netherlands as a way of coping with clutter. A theoretical framework justifying the use of Twin Commercials hardly exists. What is really needed is research into the effect of repetition within very short time intervals. On the break level, zapping behaviour partly destroys the Twin Commercial effect. It is an illusion to think that viewers see both parts of the Twin Commercial in the same break. This means that both parts of a Twin Commercial must have a leg to stand on. At campaign level, contact frequencies are almost doubled. In order to prevent wear-out effects, some variation is recommended. The adding of new information in the second part of the commercial could be a way of achieving this. The hypotheses we tested could not be confirmed. Of course, we tested only one set of commercials. It could be that the main film used, as a result of its length or creative content, generated so much impact that the extra 5 seconds did not matter so much. Both The Media Partnership and the STER are willing to repeat the survey with other commercials. But for now the effectiveness of Twin Commercials seems at best limited. Of course, there can be creative reasons for using Twin Commercials anyway.  Use Twin Commercials when there is a creative necessity, and an available creative implementation for them Use combinations with a relatively short main film (30 or less), otherwise the added value is bound to be small Ask for exclusivity as a Twin Commercial within the commercial break For a Twin Commercial to make your brand or product stand out among the clutter, you really need an outstanding Twin Commercial