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Real People Are Good, Animated Ads, Not So Much

Animation is great, just not at selling products. A new report reminds us of the value of (expensive) human actors in TV advertising.

Alex Goldmark
By Alex GoldmarkDec 04, 2010
Alex Goldmark
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Animated ads are getting more popular. They're novel, they're often cheaper than hiring real actors and camera crews, and they give an ad agency total control. Too bad they don't seem to work as well as old fashioned live-action TV commercials according to a new analysis from Nielsen Media Research.

"... in general, live action ads were more effective than animation ads. For all major categories, live action ads scored 22 percent higher than animation-only ads in Brand Recall (the percentage of TV viewers who can recall the commercial and its advertised brand 24 hours after viewing it).

"When looking at consumer packaged goods specifically, ads in the personal care category appeared to struggle the most when using animation. For certain personal care products, brand recall was twice as high among spots using live action vs. an animated theme."

Nice to know us live humans still have something going for us over CGI.

Read the full report here.

technologymediacultureadvertisingentertainmentcommercialsadslive-action adscgi commercialcreepy adsspinfilm and tvbusiness and entrepreneurship

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