The Social Impact of Out-of-Home Viewing of Sports Events - Ed Keller

June is a very active time for sports television the NBA Playoffs are in full throttle along with the Stanley Cup MLB races are taking shape the US Open Golf tournament is soon upon us with Tiger Woods once again relevant and two of Tennis39s major tournaments The French Open and Wimbledon will take place this month And by the end of next month it will be on to the London 2012 OlympicsMajor sports events are particularly popular for outofhome viewing whether at bars and restaurants friends39 homes in offices or quoton the goquot via mobile devices There are two important questions for advertisers however How big are outofhome audiences and are they more or less valuable than athome audiences The argument for being less valuable is that people are distracted from advertising when they watch in large group settings while the argument for being more valuable is that ads seen in social settings lead to more conversation and therefore more social valueA paper presented last week at The Wharton School shows that the outofhome audience are both significant in size and more valuable than inhome audiences Entitled quotThe Power of Outof Home Audiences in the Digital Agequot it was presented by my colleague Brad Fay together with Jay Leon from Turner Sports and Carol Edwards from Arbitron The paper is the result of multiple studies conducted on behalf of Turner Sports the 2011 NBA playoffs the 2011 MLB playoffs and the 2012 NCAA quotMarch Madnessquot men39s basketball tournamentArbitron39s research confirmed that the outofhome audiences for major sporting event television are large enough to have a material impact on media planning and buying decisions Depending on which of the tournaments were studied the lift resulting from outofhome viewing was anywhere from 15 to 25 for 1849 year olds and even larger for 1834sKeller Fay39s word of mouth research demonstrates that the outofhome sports television audiences are even more valuable than athome audiences because they generate more WOM conversations about advertised brands For the NBA Playoffs as one example athome viewers are 35 more likely than nonviewers males 1854 in both cases to engage in conversations about the leading sponsors outofhome viewers are 64 more likely to do so A very similar pattern holds for the other two tournamentsOutofHome Viewers Are Far More Likely to Talk About Advertisers vs AtHome Viewers 2011 NBA PlayoffsWhat accounts for this outofhome lift in conversation about advertised brands Outofhome viewing tends to occur in more social settings such as a bar or restaurant Their environments create more opportunities for advertising to stimulate conversations about brands and thus to create greater value for the advertisersThe implication for the ad community is that advertisers can take comfort in the knowledge that increasingly quoton the goquot viewing produces rewards in terms of both audience size and engagement Far from outofhome viewing being a distraction it instead adds social glue that leads to greater value for the advertiserAdvertisers enjoy the gamesEd Keller CEO of the Keller Fay Group has been called quotone of the most recognized names in word of mouthquot His new book The FacetoFace Book Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace was recently published by Free PressSimon ampamp Schuster 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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The Social Impact of Out-of-Home Viewing of Sports Events - Ed Keller

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