Media: Zap] That's another pounds 1m down the tube: Advertisers are taking dramatic steps to stop us switching channels during their commercials. Meg Carter reports

SEGA Pirate TV is more than a commercial - it is an event. This, at least, is what its creator, the advertising agency WCRS, wants you to believe. Loud, brash and gaudy, the two-and-a-half- minute Pirate TV ad has invaded the nation's living-rooms with one of the biggest pre-broadcast hypes in advertising history.

Sega's latest campaign, to launch its new interactive-video system Mega CD, is designed to reach the parts that other ads fail to reach - 16- to 25-year-olds, an age group notoriously light fingered with the channel zapper if its interest is lost. The computer games market is aggressive, fast-moving and highly competitive, so that making an impact is critical, and not just with products. Sega plumped for maximum impact and maximum hype.

First came the posters for spoof products A La Kat cat food and Ecco washing powder. Then came the pirates (who turned out to be in Sega's pay), apparently defacing the posters to announce the imminent arrival of Pirate TV. And after that there were press adverts, reinforcing the message and telling people to watch the advert in the same way that a television company would entice an audience to watch a new programme.

The actual commercial broke on ITV and Channel 4 last Friday. It made 22 further appearances over the weekend and continues to run in shortened form this week. 'The build up to the commercial's launch was critical,' claims Peter Cowie, group account director for Sega at WCRS. 'After all, when you spend that much on a two-and-a-half-minute ad you want to make sure people watch it.'

Sega is not commenting on the cost of the campaign, although Philip Ley, the company's UK marketing director, does reveal that it expects to spend between pounds 10m- pounds 15m on advertising this year. The aim is to make the brand's name bigger than the product itself. 'To do this, television advertising alone is not enough; the idea must work across the whole of our marketing activity,' Ley says.

The approach is not unprecedented even if the scale is. Many advertising campaigns run teasers to build anticipation for the main burst, such as the recent Vauxhall Corsa and Nissan 'bubble' campaigns. Nescafe unarguably benefits from the PR run up to each new instalment of the Gold Blend saga. And, at its launch, First Direct enjoyed significant media attention to promote its eclectic ad campaign through the agency Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury.

But achieving such awareness through television, and among 16- to 25- year-olds in particular, takes more than a deep pocket and a clever idea. Increasingly, advertisers must battle against audience fatigue: more and more viewers are switching over during the breaks and, a growing number of advertisers maintain, broadcasters are adding to the problem. Viewers now have to wade through television companies' own promotions and sponsors' credits before being exposed to the advertisers' messages, by which time many have switched elsewhere.

Tele-Bingo, cartoon characters and television crosswords are just some of the tactics foreign broadcasters have used to stem audience loss during advertising breaks. Now, ITV companies are considering using a technique from the United States that claims to make television ads more effective.

It might seem ironic that British commercials, thought by many to be the best in the world, are increasingly a turn-off to viewers. But as the number of television channels grows with satellite and cable, companies compete harder for viewers' attention and any loyalty audiences once had to particular channels diminishes, so channel-hopping increases, too. The system proposed to ITV is simple - a tele-quiz to top and tail an ad-break which, when used by the American broadcaster ABC, dramatically raised the impact of the advertisements (pre and post-ad quizzes are already a staple of Sky Sports).

Andy Troullides, general manager of the media specialist Mediacom UK, warned delegates attending TV93, a conference for television and advertising executives held in Monte Carlo in March: 'Clutter in the ad breaks is costing us money and it could be damaging the effectiveness of the medium.' And, like many advertisers, Raoul Pinnell, marketing director for Prudential Assurance, is concerned about the effectiveness of his advertising in a multi- channel environment. 'The whole issue of whether the audience watches the commercials has been skilfully side- stepped by broadcasters,' he says.

But if commercials have to work harder to stand out from the crowd, this poses another threat. 'There is a danger if you produce advertising simply to get noticed that it will tell less about what you actually want to sell,' Mr Pinnell warns.

Estimating the severity of the problem remains an imprecise science. Barb (the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) produces viewing data, but this is based on the assumption that any viewer watching for more than 15 seconds remains with that channel. But, according to the media specialists The Billett Consultancy, ITV peak-time audiences fall by up to 18 per cent between a programme's end credits and the start of a commercial break.

Zapping has been dismissed as a problem only in Britain's 3.2 million households with cable and satellite television, but is ignored by others at their peril, warns the company's managing director, John Billett. 'Because people zap differently, according to the programme or channel watched, or their age, some advertisers are certainly paying too much for certain breaks while others are paying too little,' he says.

It is up to the broadcasters to improve the situation but, complains Simon Matthews, media director at Young & Rubicam, 'Few within the TV companies are grasping the bull by the horns'. One notable exception is the satellite channel UK Gold, he believes.

UK Gold allows advertising only during one break in the middle of its programmes, as a conscious attempt to ensure that it keeps viewers during the ads. 'You have to ensure that ad breaks are fairly short and not cluttered and, of course, that the programmes are good enough to hold audiences across the break,' says the channel's chief executive, Bruce Steinberg.

At Channel 4, experiments in presentation have led to split screens when the credits roll, with programme information and promotions being shown simultaneously to the credits in an attempt to reduce clutter. 'Television punctuation has changed immeasurably,' says the channel's head of presentation, Cherry Cole. 'Younger viewers especially can take in information

much more quickly, and lose interest more quickly.'

Others, however, maintain the dangers of zapping are exaggerated. 'If British advertising remains as good as it is, why zap out of a programme you have chosen to watch into one you have not?' says Martin Bowley, Carlton Television's sales director. Even so, Carlton has introduced themed ad breaks - its first was a style package around selected youth programmes. 'The more we can accentuate commercials' affinity with the programmes, the more likely the viewer is to stay with us through the entire break, making it more effective,' Mr Bowley says.

Even the veteran television presenter Hughie Green has come up with a solution. He is proposing a form of tele- bingo involving scratch cards with winning numbers shown on screen during selected ad breaks.

Ian Shirley, managing director of Roar Power, which has acquired UK rights to the American tele-quiz system being considered by ITV, is convinced the method will work. 'Advertisers have long voiced their worries about viewers zapping during the ad breaks; this is one solution,' he says. When used by ABC in the US, it increased by 2.8 times viewers' awareness of TV ads, Mr Shirley maintains.

Yet, wouldn't this simply add to existing clutter? Mr Matthews, of Young & Rubicam, thinks not. 'Personally, I'd welcome this sort of initiative even if it does add another element to the break, providing you can prove it maintains consumer interest and it is not presented in a tacky way.'

Whether it will add to the audience's viewing enjoyment remains to be seen. Zapping is also triggered by poor programme loyalty, and no device can counter unpopular programmes.

But although ITV's audience share remains ahead of its competitors, advertisers and agencies are demanding swift action. The sense of urgency is neatly summed up by Simon Matthews, who says: 'Our real concern is that if they don't act soon, the BBC will make significant gains in audience share, and none of us wants that.'

(Photograph omitted)