Social TV Viewing, Word of Mouth, and Ad Effectiveness - Ed Keller

When people consume media together either inhome or outofhome does it help or hurt advertising effectivenessThe argument that it hurts the advertiser is the quotdistractionquot model which argues that the presence of other people distracts people from onscreen content reducing value to the advertiser This is an argument put forth by Steven Bellman et al in their 2011 paper quotHow Coviewing Reduces the Effectiveness of TV AdvertisingquotThe argument that it helps the advertiser is the quotsocial influencequot model which posits that the presence of other people leads to more emotional engagement and the sharing of advertising content leading to higher ad effectiveness This is an argument that Brad Fay and I put forth in The FacetoFace Book forthcoming from Simon ampamp SchusterFree Press in May 2012 It was also the topic of a recent paper presented by Brad Fay and Gregg Liebman Senior VP at Turner Broadcasting at the recent ARF Rethink 2012 conferenceThe LiebmanFay paper reported on the results of research that the Keller Fay Group conducted for Turner during the 2011 NBA Eastern Conference Finals a six game series between the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat The purpose was to test the quotsocial modelquot summarized above The primary focus was on the top 12 advertisers for this series comparing word of mouth among people who watched in social settings compared with those who watched alone And more specifically those who watched in social settings outofhome vs those who watched in social settings at home The 12 advertisers included TMobile Adidas Miller Lite State Farm McDonald39s Hyundai ETrade Disney Studios Cars 2 ampamp Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides Microsoft Microsoft Windows ampamp Windows Phone ChryslerDodge Sprint and ProgressiveA representative sample of more than 2220 males aged 1854 were studied during the NBA finals in which they kept track of their word of mouth conversations about brands including the advertised brands We compared these results with word of mouth levels about the same brands during the off season the NBA regular season and the early playoff roundsThe study showed that coviewing delivers a clear word of mouth benefit for advertisers by increasing engagement with the ad content This can be seen in two key sets of data First when we looked at the levels of conversation about these top advertisers among men who watched the Eastern Conference Finals in outofhome settings work other people39s homes restaurantsbars etc amp8211 which collectively represented 43 of the total viewership we found that they are far more likely to talk about the advertised brands amp8211 between 1 amp189 and 2 times the level of conversation compared to the norm And when we looked at those who watched in social settings with friends or acquaintances whether inhome or outof home we found conversations levels about advertised brands were approximately 1 amp189 times the norm So far from being a distraction coviewing was associated with greater levels of word of mouthThere are a number of important implications from this research For media buyers it suggests that coviewed formats may have higher value than soloviewed formats For creative development it suggests the need to design content that will be shared offline as well as online especially for ads which will be seen in social settings For programmers it suggests a new reason to work on developing programs that will appeal to the whole family in order to spur more coviewing From a research perspective we look forward to finding the right opportunity to test these findings further with nonsports programming to see if the same trends holdEd Keller CEO of the Keller Fay Group has been called quotone of the most recognized names in word of mouthquot The publication of Keller39s book The Influentials has been called the quotseminal moment in the development of word of mouthquot His new book The FacetoFace Book is coming out in May 2012 You can follow Ed Keller on Twitter Facebook and Google or contact him directly at ekellerkellerfaycomRead all Edamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at WOM MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Social TV Viewing, Word of Mouth, and Ad Effectiveness - Ed Keller

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