In today’s discussion, we discussed the difference in audience which are zappers, causals, and loyals. A Loyal is a fan that watch the show faithfully and can be very critical to the show. They will also buy the merchandise. Casuals are people who watch a certain show but only if anything isnt on or if they are reminded. A zapper is a person who doesn’t have a specific show to watch, they just flip thorugh channels until they find something interesting then change the channel again. In the reading it discuss that it is possible that we can be all three at times. I’m more of a zapper and casual because on somedays I will just flip through channels until I find something to watch. I can be a casual because I will watch watch some shows only if reminded.
We also discussed product placement and how it has changed over time. Product placement has become the best way to advertise products. These days people don’t seat watch commercials. So now the product that would usually have acommercial during a certain show are now being placed in the show itself and you have no choice but to see it. But, I honestly perfer this method because the show isn’t being interuppted with commercials.
I think I’m more of a loyal. I have maybe like 5 or 6 shows that I watch religiously and have set up my DVR to record the show every time it comes on. I usually try to avoid watching commercials as well. Even if I’m sitting in front of the TV at 7 and one of my favorite shows comes on at 7, I’ll record it and watch a different show I’ve recorded so then I can go back to the other show and skip over all of the commercials…even if I start to watch the show 20-30 minutes late, I’ll still be able to skip over the commercials.
I’m a casual fan at the moment, my schedule does not allow me to get involved in one show. However, I was a Gleek (Glee fan) and I use to watch Basketball Wives, now I just watch tv or the shows on the web when I think about it.
I think modern product placement within television shows mostly came back because of the invention of TiVo. Advertisers used to actually make their commercials with TiVo in mind, making sure that certain images or words appeared when you fast forwarded through the commercials. They decided that wasn’t going to cut it, so they started implementing product placement more and more. Another area of product placement that has significantly grown is in video games. I did some research on this a while back, and most studies showed that people don’t really care about the product placement in video games unless it interrupts the game play or the video game’s environment/mood. Maybe because we’re already so used to commercials in television, the slightest product placement in a show doesn’t seem so strange after all.
Oh yeah, video games are definitely the newest front in product placement, which makes sense, because you can’t really stop the game in the middle for an ad. Though some people could argue, since you *paid* for the game already, it should be free of ads, unlike TV, which is generally free to watch. But if audiences don’t care about the product placement, then it seems like it will only increase in frequency.
Yeah, I think so. Some of the most popular video games have product placement now because it reflects reality. Here’s a link to a video of some static video game product placement (just ignore the silly text throughout it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzqKs1nqQAY&playnext=1&list=PL7CAAF31B88C4AD93&feature=results_video
I also think that people can be loyals, casuals and zappers at the same time.
For me personally, that depends both on the show and on the occasion that made me watch television. If I follow a specific drama series or a soccer game for example, I really do not want to miss anything of it. But when I switch on the TV just in order to relax, I rather tend to be a zapper, too.
Moreover I think that if you watched a show – such as American Idol – with your friends, you probably would not change the channel, because in that case it is not only about watching a certain program, but also about talking about it during the commercial breaks.
I think I fall into the category of all three. I am really a loyal fan to a specific show, but once it goes off, I am a zapper. When the show I am loyal to ends, and I a zapping, I turn to something I am a casual fan of, and then go back to the show I am loyal of. American Idol was and still is a cool show, but I can only watch it with a group of people, It is like watching paint dry when your alone.