Audience Measurement In The Evolving TV Landscape
Alex North, head of commercial operations UK, AGB Nielsen Media Research, examines how personal measurement meters will become key to understanding media consumption as traditional channels morph beyond recognition…
What we want, when we want and how we want it. It’s a pretty accurate description of how the TV market has evolved in recent years, and I’ll be honest, I’m a huge fan of this.
I like being in control of hundreds of channels, being able to watch programmes whenever I want. The problem is that despite the wonder of all this viewer control, the continual evolution poses quite a few questions for both marketers and audience research practitioners.
To give an example, I recently watched an episode of Heroes that had been recorded on Sky+ two weeks beforehand. I skipped the advert breaks at 30 times the normal speed, but whilst looking for the ‘Eidos’ sponsorship credit to tell me to stop forwarding I actually did the unthinkable and stopped my super-speed through the ads mid-break to watch one that I liked.
As I watched the programme, I also logged on to the internet to watch a YouTube video a friend had told me about.
How do you measure my media consumption? How do you measure the attention I was paying, or wasn’t paying, to each media? Was my engagement diminished by the fact I was multi-tasking? I remembered who sponsored Heroes, and was focussed enough on the fast-fowarded break to stop when I saw an ad I liked, but how much attention was I paying to the other adverts in the break as they were flying by at 30 times their normal speed?
How do you target someone like me with advertising?
These are the sorts of questions facing marketers when trying to target increasingly elusive and discerning consumers, not just with television advertising, but also with multi-media campaigns.
In stark contrast to 20 years ago, there is now a TV in most rooms of the house (sometimes in the car as well if it’s been pimped). The VHS recorder is almost obsolete, and no longer sold in many high street retailers. Aside from the choice of service providers there are a number of formats through which you can watch content. Video-on-demand, personal video recorders (PVRs), Sky Anytime, vast online libraries of programmes and live streaming of TV channels on the internet to name but a few.
Although the penetration of some of these platforms is relatively small at present the numbers will only grow. There are currently 2.4 million Sky+ households and with other PVRs such as Virgin’s V+ and Freeview Playback recently launching, the technology is forecast to be in over 40% of homes by 2012. By that time, the whole population will be digital, giving increased choice to all in terms of both channels and technology.
It is imperative that we have the measurement techniques in place to measure this ever-changing environment.
This is one of AGB NMR’s areas of expertise. Beyond measuring standard television broadcasts and time-shifted viewing, the UNITAM meters can also track recordable DVDs, PVRs, video-on-demand and online television, all of which are becoming more mainstream. The meters are capable of measuring viewing by second, which seconds are fast-forwarded, and as long as the video-on-demand content is available in a referencing library they can potentially measure when that content is being watched, whether it is two minutes or two years after it was originally broadcast.
Television delivered via broadband is already starting to provide a wealth of return-path data on viewing habits. This provides quite a cost-effective way of analysing a large sample of people without needing respondent co-operation. The challenge here lies in turning records of set-top box activity into something meaningful. Nielsen in the US has conducted detailed studies on how to convert this data, looking at analysis capability and modelling the viewing habits of individuals within households.
Beyond standard exposure metrics, there has been a lot of discussion of measuring attention, or engagement with television, and going forward this will become increasingly important.
In the absence of tracking media consumption with some sort of brain implant, or fixing a meter to every person or piece of technology in the house, there is also a great deal of insight to be gleaned from fusing various forms of research data, to provide a view on how various media are working together.
On the media agency side there are a number of tools and techniques that take a holistic view of the communications landscape, be it traditional above-the-line media or non-traditional channels.
Initiatives such as these are the key to keeping up with the evolution in technology, both in television and other media. From a television measurement point of view the continued development of meters to track new broadcast platforms is imperative, as is a true understanding of how this data, and subsequently this medium, fits in with the rest of the communications landscape.