Investigating the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming

An empirical investigation was conducted to evaluate the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming. This format was compared to the sequential presentation format in terms of ad-avoidance intention, generation of cognitive responses, and brand evaluations. Results indicate that the simultaneous presentation format reduces ad-zapping intentions. However, the distraction effect of the simultaneous viewing of the program leads to a reduction of the dominant cognitive response generated by the advertising message. Compared to sequential presentation, simultaneous presentation of advertising and programming reduces support arguments and brand evaluations for relatively strong messages, but not for relatively weak messages.