What keeps viewers glued to the tube? Disney wants to know
A planned research lab is part of the company's efforts to update its advertising sales strategy
By
Meg James, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 14, 2008
NEW YORK -- Walt Disney Co. is trying to get inside the minds of television viewers.
The Burbank-based entertainment company, with its profitable ESPN and ABC entertainment networks, said Tuesday that it was developing an "emerging media and advertising research lab" to try to figure out why people watch the shows they do.
ABC made the announcement as part of its "upfront" presentation to advertisers in New York to kick off the industry's springtime television sales season. ESPN entertained advertisers Tuesday morning, and ABC unveiled its fall schedule in the afternoon.
The new research center will be based in Austin, Texas, and will test a variety of advertising practices to discern how receptive consumers are to products that are integrated into shows, whether people pay attention to split screens and how they watch programs on mobile devices. Disney hopes to have the center running by November.
The effort is part of a companywide campaign to bring Disney's advertising sales strategy into the 21st century as behavioral research is more plentiful in the digital age. Now, television networks have second-by-second viewing data available, through Nielsen Media Research, TiVo and cable television operators.
Mike Shaw, ABC's advertising sales president, separately said that his team had developed a tool called the "advertising value index" to help corporate advertisers figure out which shows have the greatest appeal to their targeted consumers.
"We want to take a deeper dive into the audience itself," Shaw said at a news conference.
Disney is not the first firm to try to better analyze why people watch the shows they do. CBS built its own comprehensive TV-viewing research facility in Las Vegas in 2001.
More than 200 people a day, a cross section of visitors to the gambling mecca, go through CBS' TV City, giving feedback on TV commercials, promotions and websites.
"We have the latest eye-tracking research and neuro-focus systems that measure brain waves," said David Poltrack, CBS' chief research officer. "We have been doing all types of experimental research. The industry is moving away from just counting households to measuring how communication with viewers takes place."......
Whole article:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-fi-abc14-2008may14,0,4320889.story
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