Clocking Clutter

Brandweek, April 3, 2000 by Becky Ebenkamp

There is something strangely satisfying about advertising agencies referring to their masterwork as "clutter:" You'd think they'd come up with some cute euphemism, like "alternative programming" or "content refreshers."

Whatever they call it, clutter is cropping up more often these days than boy band parodies. According to the 1999 Television Commercial Monitoring Report, a joint study by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers, the amount of TV clutter soared to its highest level ever across all dayparts in 1999. During prime time, network TV added 59 seconds of this non-programming last year, for a grand total of 16:43 minutes per hour. Daytime TV added 52 seconds for a soaring sum of 20:53 minutes per hour. Late night, network news and early morning TV showed equally strong increases, too.

The study defines clutter as all non-programming, including ads, public service announcements, network promotions, program credits not run over continuing program action and other "unidentified gaps within a commercial pod," whatever that means.

While more time available means more opportunities to advertise, agency execs at the 4As media conference weren't thrilled with the study's results: All this other fluff means viewers will have less space in their cluttered minds in which to store memories of one's own ad: One BBDO exec theorized that there's a direct correlation between the increase in clutter and the diminishing effectiveness of an agency's creative. Oh, now we see why they would give it such a derogatory name: "Clutter" is the other guy's work.