RESEARCH BRIEF. Cultural Currency: Where Television Meets Social. Methodology

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1 RESEARCH BRIEF Cultural Currency: Where Television Meets Social Online social media has replaced Main Street USA as more and more citizens meet, develop, and maintain relationships in virtual reality. Whether to offset busy lives, physical distance, or just plain loneliness, social media has changed the way we are meeting and getting to know one another. Absent shared experiences in the physical world, virtual social friends connect and bond through what is easily known the products of our mass culture industries Music, Film and Television. It is here that we begin to see how Culture becomes Currency and why there will always be a need for its mass production. Mainstream media products have now become the glue that connects our virtual and physical lives and just like monetary currencies, different cultural products provide different value. TVB has engaged in a year- long study of Cultural Currency and its relevance to the television industry, specifically. Operationally, mass culture products need to meet two conditions to achieve Cultural Currency: A large audience of fans/customers/users Above average use within social interactions Evaluating the Cultural Currency value of television provides a roadmap for programmers and marketers seeking media environments that can help their brands transcend the moment and gain tangible traction with consumers. Different media channels drive different social media behaviors and reap different benefits for marketing partners. In the television medium, national networks and local stations work together to drive cultural currency transactions through common ground. Nationally, television networks provide the common ground to make connections, while locally, TV stations curate common ground to build the communities who ultimately make purchases. In the end, all sales are local. Methodology In partnership with Colligent, a social affinity mapping company, specific behaviors within Facebook and Twitter were monitored to identify unique, highly engaged fans (13+) in Calendar 2012 across: 570 TV stations 1823 radio stations 358 local and national newspapers 540 consumer brands broadcast and cable programs Unique engaged fan reach was calculated by Colligent for each program and plotted alongside audience size using Nielsen Media Research Live+7 data for Persons 12+. The results were expressed in a 4- quadrant map of Cultural Currency expressing both audience size and depth of social media engagement. Using Kantar data, Calendar 2012 brand investment in primetime programming at the product level was overlaid to arrive at brand affinity insights by Cultural Currency quadrant.

2 Principal Findings Cultural Currency and Engagement Behaviors in Television The Cultural Currency study measured a range of social media behaviors on Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps most striking among the findings was the polarization of online social media behaviors as it related to genre and platform. While all genres had some levels of activity across the two social media platforms, there were clear proclivities for use of one over the other: Social Media Behaviors by Primetime Genre Indexed to Median Scores Across All Genres FACEBOOK BEHAVIORS: TWITTER BEHAVIORS: Frequent Photo- Content Frequest Content Video Genre Commenters Likers Commenters Likers Posters Talkers Hashers Repliers Retweeters Behaviors Across Facebook & Twitter Animation Children & Teen Documentary Horror Music Reality - Food & Cooking Science Fiction Thriller Primarily Facebook Behaviors Action Suspense Game Show Reality Reality - Adventure Reality - Home & Garden Travel Primarily Twitter Behaviors Awards Comedy 121 Drama 113 News Talk Show News/Documentary Reality - Competition All Genres Viewers of the mainstream genres, driven by big box hits like Competition Reality (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars), Comedy (Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, 2 ½ Men) and Dramas (Grey s Anatomy, NCIS:Los Angeles, Once Upon a Time) exhibited more active behaviors on Twitter than on Facebook. In fact, compared to the average of all genres, they under- indexed on Facebook behaviors entirely. One possible explanation could be temporal. Big shows still have an appointment- viewing factor, and the always- on sensibility of social networks has replaced the next- day water- cooler conversation with in- the- moment interaction. This suggests that velocity of exchange may also be a factor in determining Cultural Currency and that Twitter is already a dominant player among viewers in this regard.

3 When we drill down to local engagement and consider all activity (not just primetime programming), we see how local television stations drive behaviors on both platforms through the combination of local, community- based news and information programming and big, entertainment offerings through network affiliation. The dominant TV station behavior centers on photo and video posting, a validation of the strong community link that local broadcasters forge with viewers who share images of daily local life from devastation to celebration. Of all media types available in local markets, local television offers the most balanced set of consumer activity on both social media platforms maximizing a marketer s potential to turn paid media investment into earned brand affinity. Social Media Behaviors by Media Types Available in Local Markets Note: Due to various sources of programming on local TV stations, Local Television is a Combination of Scores from Fans of TV Stations, Fans of Broadcast Networks and Fans of Broadcast Programming. Mapping Cultural Currency in the Television Landscape For the purposes of our study, Cultural Currency was defined as having achieved both broad audiences and having effected significant social media behaviors. Quite simply, a program with a high degree of Cultural Currency would be expected to attract large audiences that used the cultural products of that program as currency in their social media interactions. The TVB/Colligent Study analyzed 4400 primetime entertainment programs from the 2012 calendar year (320 Broadcast/4,080 Cable). Each show was assigned two values P13+ Social Media Program Share 1 and 1 This metric was derived from calculating the unique reach of each program s fans across nine different social media actions and then dividing it by the total reach for all television programs across the same nine social media actions. It is important to differentiate that this approach is a measurement of fan BEHAVIOR, not fan CONVERSATION. In addition, through Colligent s calculation of unique audiences, this methodology eliminates the possibility of data inflation from single users posting commentary multiple times.

4 Live+7 Day P12+ Impression Delivery. These values were plotted as the x and y axes, respectively, on the Cultural Currency Map: The Cultural Currency Map of Primetime Entertainment Television P12+ Impressions Quadrant 2 Dancing with the Stars NCIS Quadrant 1 Big Bang Theory NCIS: Los Angeles The Voice American Idol Broadcast Programs Cable Programs 60 Minutes Grey s Anatomy Once Upon a Time Criminal Minds Revenge Modern Family America s Got Talent Burn Notice Sons of Anarchy Mad Men Breaking Bad Walking Dead Project Runway Top Gear Pretty Little Liars icarly Southpark Spongebob Quadrant 4 Quadrant 3 Source: TVB/Colligent Cultural Currency Study. Nielsen Media Research P12+ Live+7 Day Weighted program Impressions. Colligent P13+ Cultural Currency Reach %. P13+ Social Media Program Share In mapping the primetime television landscape in this way, it becomes clear that blockbuster hits by traditional television metrics also have standout Cultural Currency value. These programs tended to be specials (Grammy Awards) or reality- based (American Idol, The Voice) with several key dramas and comedies. The Cultural Currency values for these hits far outpaced the average program performance. Some key take- aways: High social media engagement scores without sizeable audiences were most prevalent for younger- skewing and cable original offerings, specifically tween/teen focused, potentially demonstrating the youthful bias of the social media dataset. High Cultural Currency values, however, were seen across genre types that appeal to a wide array of demographic groups. This may be an indicator that the online social media population is becoming more reflective of the general population. Broadcast programs carried the highest degree of Cultural Currency, offering the greatest number of programs that yielded large audiences with significant engagement. Original cable dramas offered the best opportunity in the cable environment to achieve Cultural Currency with several programs on the cusp of inclusion in the highest Cultural Currency quadrant. Cultural Currency, Brand Affinity and Television Advertising Investment Is there a value for advertisers riding the wave of Cultural Currency? The TVB/Colligent Study suggests that there is. Translating investment in Paid Media to Earned Media is a matter of marrying reach with relevance. Marketers have the

5 greatest opportunity to grow more affinity for their brands in social media by first identifying the content that already has a high concentration of brand and content fans in common. Brand Fan Growth Over Flight Period (# Engaged Fans) Impact by Cultural Currency Quadrant Brand Affinity Growth Quad 1 v Quad 4 Vertical Category (# New Brand Fans Over Apparel Automotive Beverages Food Organizations Restaurant Retail Technology Travel Services Websites Flight Period) 23X 20X 57X 42X 21X 192X 10X 23X 4X 7X The study explored individual marketing investments and the brand affinity growth achieved pre and post advertising activity in Calendar Across the 540 Brand/Program combinations measured in the study 2, advertisers spending nearly exclusively in Quadrant 1, the highest valued Cultural Currency quadrant, outpaced the Brand Affinity Growth of advertisers spending primarily in Quadrant 4 by a factor of 15, with some advertising categories growing as much as 192X more brand fans in the most active Cultural Currency Quadrant. All Categories 15X Local TV Station % Advantage v Other Electronic Media Media Type Fans Who are Also Fans of Brands in Advertising Category Applying this lens to local markets, the TVB/Colligent study calculated the percentage of social network users who were fans of a particular local medium AND fans of a particular brand within an advertising vertical category. Across electronic media, television stations far- outpaced their radio and cable alternatives in providing relevant programming environments. 2 Kantar, January November To demonstrate the relationship between Cultural Currency and advertising investment, all brands that spent less than 70% of all 2012 television investment in a single quadrant were excluded from analysis in order to see quadrant effects. Programs that appear on multiple networks were also excluded since many of these instances crossed quadrants.

6 CONCLUSIONS Much research has been done around the ability of social media to predict interest or focus attention on other traditional media, but little has been explored around the symbiotic effect of social media in conjunction with traditional media on consumer brands. In this study of Cultural Currency, TVB was able to unlock new value in television sponsorship through the lens of social media behavior and demonstrate the associative benefit to marketers in building stronger brand affinity. Social media provides an opportunity to unlock the relevance in reach. Marketers can utilize social media engagement data to make smarter television investments that maximize consumer affinity for their brands. In the process we were also able to unearth unique insights around content strengths and weaknesses through the lens of social media behaviors. Importantly: There is still magic in mass. Audience size is an integral element in accelerating and amplifying broad affinity and engagement. There will always be cheaper ways to aggregate consumers, but what can be saved in raw cost efficiencies appears ultimately to be lost in brand amplification. Not all impressions are created equal. Broadcast television programs carry the highest degree of Cultural Currency, offering the greatest number of opportunities to yield both large audiences with significant engagement. Engagement takes on personal meaning in local markets. Local Broadcast combines the best of what network primetime and local news programming have to offer, stimulating the most balanced array of online social media behaviors for marketers to tap into. About TVB TVB is the not- for- profit trade association of America s commercial broadcast television industry. Its members include television broadcast groups, advertising sales reps, syndicators, international broadcasters, associate members and over 500 individual television stations. TVB actively promotes local media marketing solutions to the advertising community, and in so doing works to develop advertising dollars for the medium s multiple platforms, including on- air, website and mobile. TVB provides a diverse variety of tools and resources, including to support its members and to help advertisers make the best use of local ad dollars. About Colligent Colligent provides tools and services to define the DNA of any brand based on its affinities and use it to buy brand specific audience across media. It further measures campaign effectiveness based on engagement growth between a brand and media bought. The website ( offers a free affinity tool that shows top affinities for more than 36,000 brands, media, and entertainment. Clients include Comcast, MTV, PepsiCo, Universal, VH1 and many others.