Doh! Homer likes to watch happy ads when he's sad

By Karyn Scherer

You're slumped in front of the telly after a hard day's work. It's been a dreadful day and you're happy to surrender your brain to some light laughs, courtesy of those clever American scriptwriters.

You're feeling so lazy you can't even be bothered switching channels when the ads come on. Before you know it, a gruesome promotion for - of all things - a magazine, comes on.

Exactly how you react to such advertising probably depends on whether you are male or female, according to a new study recently completed at Auckland University.

The study, by Dr Brett Martin at the university's business school, was intended to examine what effect, if any, a viewer's mood has on the effectiveness of television advertising.

Just under 200 undergraduates took part in the study, which was carried out over the summer holidays. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the study concluded that reactions do indeed depend on whether ads are inserted into a comedy, such as The Simpsons or Seinfeld, or a more serious programme, such as a documentary on child cancer.

However, it also showed a clear difference between male and female reactions.

According to Dr Martin, females responded best to ads if they suited the mood of the programme they were watching.

"Females tended to like consistency. If they were in a positive mood, they reacted most favourably to ads that were also positive. If they were in a sad mood, they reacted most if advertising was also sad."

The reaction among males was even more clear. "With males, it was a completely different story. If they were in a happy mood, they most favoured ads that were negative. If they were in a sad mood, they liked upbeat ads more."

The results came as something of a surprise. "The gender effect is under-researched. Its difficult to know what to expect in terms of gender, but in terms of the mood in ads, we probably expected people in a positive mood to favour positive ads."

The study suggests traditional methods of choosing advertising space on television could well be out-dated, and Dr Martin hopes the results will soon be published in an academic journal.

"A lot of research on advertising is done on the mistaken assumption that people are very rational," he says. "It assumes they act like Spock out of Star Trek. Perhaps that was true when television started, but it's a little less relevant now."

The lessons from the study, he believes, are that ad agencies and their clients need to pay closer attention to the moods established by specific programmes, to maximise the impact on their target markets.

"The traditional marketing approach is to find a TV programme that matches your profile and slap your ads in it. This research says you should take it a step further, depending on the nature of the TV programme you're advertising in."