Public-savvy media

A media-savvy public doesn’t mean that advertising has no impact (Private View, DW 1 December). If the point of an ad is to force you into the nearest shop to purchase the product, that’s not likely to happen. If it is to make you think of the product the next time you want something, then that is a lot harder to measure. If you are ‘prompted’ by your stomach to buy a bar of chocolate, you’re more likely to buy one that you saw in an ad. ‘Unprompted’ recollection doesn’t need to happen for an ad to work.

I don’t know if Adrian Shaughnessy has tried skipping an ad break on Sky+, but it’s harder than it looks. You fast forward, then crash into the next part of the programme, so you have to rewind to the end of the last ad anyway.

Avoiding ad breaks altogether isn’t likely until TV companies can operate without the revenue. A media-savvy public may represent a challenge, but maybe we need to be a more media-savvy and public-savvy profession.

Richard Wells, Communications officer, East Hampshire District Council, Winchester, GU31 4EX