TECHNOLOGY HAS REINVENTED HOW CONSUMERS WATCH TV How should audience measurement respond?
The challenge is not lack of audience data. The challenge is combining the long tail data in a way that brings us a closer understanding of how people are viewing content. 2 technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV 3
Consumers can watch any program, anytime, anywhere. A FAST CHANGING LANDSCAPE In the 1980 s when GfK started measuring TV audiences, TV programs were watched as a family. There were a handful of channels for consumers to choose and all TV programming was live. Consumers knew when a program would be aired and they arranged their schedules to be in front of the TV to view their favorite shows and the ads embedded in them. As we all know, things have changed. Today s consumer has a control over their TV and video viewing experience unimaginable to their 1980 s counterparts. They can watch video programs anywhere they want any time they want and on any device they want. Consumers are devoting as much attention each day to smart phones, computers and tablets as they are to TV. And this trend will continue since online video content is exploding. 4 technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV 5
TRACKING THE CONSUMER S CROSS-PLATFORM JOURNEY Tracking the individual viewer across screens, sometimes simultaneously A properly set up and managed panel is without equal at measuring the human element of TV viewing: who exactly is watching what? But let s consider the new reality of an individual s cross-platform journey. A quick look at the media day of a typical sports fan shows the complexity of measuring media choices in today s multi-screen marketplace. Our typical fan watches morning sports news on the web catches a preview of tonight s Big Game at home on TV uses social media to firm up a date to watch the game live with friends in a bar tweets game predictions 6 technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV on his smart phone. and catches highlights of other games on catchup TV in the evening. Each screen is playing a different role in the total experience. And each screen dictates the content s format; smart phone content is likely to be a two-minute narrative, for instance, while tablet content will be longer. To understand our viewer s experience, we must understand his complete multi-dimensional, multi-screen experience. In truth, to understand the viewer journey, we need to understand many different viewer journeys. From an advertising perspective, this explosion of consumer screens means the path to purchase that was once linear is infinitely more complex. Historically, the path to purchase was powered largely by TV advertising and was straightforward: awareness, consideration, trial, purchase, repeat. Now that tuning in is more varied and fragmented, the ad spend is also more fragmented and complex. Brands have more opportunity to engage with consumers in a multi screen environment. different messages at different points in the viewer journey increasing their opportunity to establish a relationship with the viewer and nurture a loyal customer. To help marketers understand the new viewer journey, audience measurement needs to integrate representative panel data ( human data) with much larger digital data trails, ( machine data), tracking the variety and complexity of the path to purchase. The good news is that brands have more opportunity to engage with consumers in the multi-screen environment. And they can engage in different ways, with technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV 7
Marketers need to know how it all fits together through a single Total Video Audience metric. Marketers need an audience measurement system that captures viewing on multiple screens, certainly. To capitalize on changing consumer behavior, they need a Total Video Audience metric. But they also need to know how consumers use different screens for different reasons. They need to know how it all fits together. The challenge in this quest is not lack of data; the challenge is combining the data available in a way that brings us closer to the viewer. Despite its massive size, machine data often lacks what is so valuable to advertisers the individual profile of viewers. Data streams from server logs or return path data, for instance, show aggregated patterns of behavior, but cannot give demographic or psychographic insights into who, exactly, makes up the pattern. Panels excel at providing rich individual detail, but are constrained by relatively small samples. Panels are rarely large enough to capture the complexity of choice viewers now have and all the points at which they must make decisions. Too often, analysis breaks down when looking at the long tail of viewing choices and yet these smaller-audience channels can be highly-targeted ad vehicles. The future calls for integrating machine data and human data to transform both into a comprehensive measurement system that answers the needs of today s multidimensional, multi-screen environment. At GfK we are paving the way towards this vision by measuring broadcasters streaming data and incorporating this viewing activity into our TV audience measurement. VIRTUAL PANELS UNLOCK VALUE BY INTEGRATING HUMAN DATA AND MACHINE DATA But where are we headed longer term? GfK s vision is to bring our user-centric understanding of the individual to Big Data to unlock value for advertisers and media owners. By integrating individual insights from our TV panels with return path data and media player events, we can ascribe these viewing events to individuals in households. This way, we can build a virtual panel to deliver rich and robust audience profiles of all viewing events, despite the fragmentation of screen viewing. Vital information for advertisers. We develop reach and frequency metrics across different platforms for both owners and advertisers. And we can validate delivery of targeted advertising on small screens as well as TV. This transformation in audience measurement will play to the strengths of both machine and human data and give marketers the tools they need to win in the new media environment. With GfK Audience Measurement & Insights, we have more than 30 years experience in defining and transforming the way TV audiences are counted and evaluated. Our standardized metrics are the currency in many of the world s TV markets including Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. Each GfK panel is representative of the country s population and gives a detailed demographic profile of individual viewers. 8 technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV 9
For more information on how we can support your business please contact: Dominique Vancraeynest Global Head of Business Development TV Audience Measurement & Insights dominique.vancraeynest@gfk.com OR visit www.gfk.com/solutions/audience-measurement-and-insights 10 technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV technology has reinvented how consumers watch TV 11