Chapter 3: New Forms of Advertising in Television: Types and Effectiveness

This chapter will look at the development, types and effectiveness of new forms of advertising in television (NFAs) and report on the current state of research in the field.

The most relevant contributions from the literature describing the practice and assessing the effectiveness of NFAs are presented and reviewed.

NFAs have emerged in response to the decreased effectiveness of conventional television advertising (spots) due to audience fragmentation, zapping, saturation and increased competition. Currently, NFAs are widely used around the world. Although the available empirical evidence indicates that NFAs are more effective than traditional spots in terms of recall, this chapter points to a need for better scientific understanding of key aspects of these new formats. Given the important role that NFAs play in how today’s television advertising market is managed, further research is needed on their effectiveness.

The literature on the practice and analysis of the effectiveness of NFAs is unfocused and varied, making it difficult to adequately determine whether the growing use of these formats can be justified on the grounds of proven arguments regarding the qualities that set them apart from traditional spots. In this regard, the summary provided in this chapter of both the state of knowledge about different types of new advertising formats on TV and their effectiveness is an important reflection of the state of the art in research on these formats.