Study to Track All-Day Media Usage

What better way to track people's video consumption than to have someone follow them around all day?

Steve McClellan, AdweekFEBRUARY 25, 2008 -

What better way to track people's video consumption than to have someone follow them around all day -- literally from the time they wake up until they retire at night -- making detailed notes about when and how they watch, listen, surf, read, play video games, download, text and talk on the phone?

That's exactly how a new $3.5 million study--funded by the Nielsen Co.--will track the media usage habits of a panel of some 450 consumers in separate phases throughout this year beginning next month.

Ball State University--a pioneer in this type of shadow-the-consumer research--and Sequent Partners on behalf of the Committee for Research Excellence (CRE) are conducting the study. CRE, comprised of agency, media company and client executives, was formed in 2005 to develop studies that provide insights into consumer viewing habits and to help Nielsen sharpen the methodologies it uses to measure audiences across a growing array of media.

Results of the study will be released in stages beginning later this year. "We think this will be a landmark study with groundbreaking results," said Shari Anne Brill, svp, director of programming at Carat and chairwoman of CRE's media consumption and engagement committee. "It will give us a blueprint of consumers' access to media content across all screens, platforms and locations throughout their waking day.

"In addition to funding the study, Nielsen Media Research (like Adweek, a unit of the Nielsen Co.) will help recruit the consumer panels, which will be comprised of former participants in Nielsen's national TV ratings panel.

A panel of 350 consumers across five markets--Philadelphia, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago--will be monitored for a full day in the spring and fall of this year by trackers who will record (via electronic handheld note-taking devices) the use of 17 different media as the people use them alone and in multiple combinations. A separate panel of 100 users will also be tracked in the spring and fall. Before the second phase, that panel will have the option to purchase Slingboxes, DVRs and other state-of-the-art media units at discounted rates. The idea is to use the second panel as a predictor of how new media devices will affect future viewing patterns.

Ball State and Sequent won the contract to conduct the survey after a review that included two other undisclosed finalists. The researchers conducted a pre-test last year to prove to the CRE that a panel would cooperate and provide usable data that could be projected nationally, said Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research at Ball State's Center for Media Design. "The findings will provide an important platform for analysis and debate as the committee pursues its mission to inform future best practices in cross-platform video measurement," he said.


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Advertising During a Recession

By Jake Swearingen

Article from: http://blogs.bnet.com

January 31st, 2008 @ 3:33 pm

What should marketers in a flat lining economy do? It’s clear that consumers are going to be watching their wallets a bit closer, and advertisers will have to try harder to pry pocketbooks back open in order to justify their budgets.

On Monday, the Times ran a story on how marketers are quickly moving to capitalize on consumer worry. Wal-Mart went back to focusing on Every Day Low Prices with the slogan, “Save money. Live better,” and became one of the few retailers to post growth in the holiday season. Nissan has taken to hyping the Altima’s miles per gallon over style or performance. But Avi Dan at Ad Age points out in his tips to CMOs that focusing on price for a campaign can have short-term benefits and long-term drawbacks. “Reliance on price incentives as a marketing tool is dangerous — it devalues the brand, and it’s hard to wean consumers off it.”

CEO Drew Reisser of marketing consulting group Renegade offers sound advice to MediaPost on what marketers can do during a recession:

• Focus on advertising with clear and proven return on investment, such as Internet and promotional advertising.
• Be prepared to cut budget bloaters like trade shows, which have a harder time proving ROI.
• Focus on a brand’s core base, instead of going after more expensive new customers
• If a brand has made its bones on humor, don’t be quick to change that. “Acknowledging bad times might feel right, particularly if a recession is protracted, but consumers may not want to be reminded of that fact. And a little entertainment can go a long way, Neisser says. ‘If humor was right for your brand in good times, it’s even more right for your brand in bad,’ he says.”

Online advertising could be one bright spot, with a bevy of news sources declaring that Google, and by extension Internet advertising, seems to resilient to economic downturns. The Times UK expects online advertising growth to perhaps slow down, but not even begin to touch the depths of the 2000 crash, while Wired News declares Google may be recession proof, comparing their AdWords program to direct mail:

“We looked at all the past recessions from 1950 on and we found that direct mail — Google’s most direct predecessor — actually grew during six recessions,” Cowen and Company’s Friedland says. “Given the current environment, there’s no reason to think Google will outperform. But there’s no reason to think it will underperform.”

Thinking that Internet advertising will be the industry’s savior is a bit rosy, however. While Internet ad spending is growing incredibly rapidly, it’s forecasted to slow to 30 percent in 2008, and it still makes up less than 10 percent of total ad spending.

(Image of the killer deal at Gray’s Papaya from flickr user aturkus, CC 2.0)