Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI July 2011
Millward Brown: Helen Fearn, Director Global Innovations Mitzi Lorentzen, VP Client Solutions, Communications Development Research Kantar Media Audiences: Jeff Boehme, Chief Research Officer Alex North, Product Manager: RapidView
Millward Brown & Kantar Media • 11 Madison Avenue • 12th Floor • New York, NY• 10010
THE NEW TV REALITY Technology is helping define a new reality in television. Digital technologies are empowering consumers with the greatest choice of content, in the highest quality, delivered when and where it is most convenient: welcome to the consumer age of television. This means that advertisers have to embrace new methods of reaching consumers with their message. The new reality presents two critical issues: •
Consumers are more actively multi-tasking on multiple devices – and the risk is potential lost audiences and ad avoidance
•
Traditional measurement is challenged to evaluate this environment with consistent metrics
This evolution comes with great opportunity. Digital advancements are enabling more efficient targeting capabilities and digital devices “communicate” with a higher fidelity of data; return path data. This means greater opportunity to “mine & combine” information so marketers can understand this new digital media landscape and improve their advertising effectiveness. As the media industry is demanding greater TV efficiency, effectiveness and accountability, the importance of commercial avoidance and subsequent loss in advertising revenue is becoming a growing concern among advertisers. Millward Brown and Kantar Media have combined two key databases to help customers understand audience tuneaway behavior and therefore minimize ad avoidance.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ‘TUNEAWAY’
perspective, tuning behavior measures the “environment” of how an ad is received. The majority of TV tuning is still
Tuneaway is a measure of lost audience derived from
live-only. We have seen that audience tuneaway averages
tuning records based on Return Path Data (RPD). RPD is
about 3%. However, this ranges and we have seen
any usage data returned to a platform company (Satellite,
campaigns where audience tuneaway can exceed 20%.
cable MSO or telephone provider) from a digital device. For
As a practical example, sponsors of the Super Bowl would
TV, this could be from a set-top box, IPTV, connected TV,
lose approximately $80,000 of their investment dollars
Internet, mobile, etc. – anything that is used to deliver TV
assuming an average of 3% audience tuneaway.
content digitally. These second-by-second tuning levels enable us to programs, as well as commercials. Tuneaway analyzes the
HOW OUR COMPANIES PARTNERED TO MEASURE TUNEAWAY
audience present at the start of an individual commercial
The Kantar Media and Millward Brown partnership was
and calculates the proportion of lost tuning seconds as a
conceived to determine how we can help our clients
result of audiences tuning away from the commercial.
maximize their advertising effectiveness by minimizing
As ad avoidance to specific campaigns can be high,
audience tuneaway. By aligning two separate databases,
understanding this behavior is critical to assessing the
Millward Brown’s robust database of Link™ copy testing and
real value of the advertising investment. From our studies,
Kantar Media’s DIRECTView actual audience behavior, we
we have determined that many factors can influence ad
can for the first time isolate the various factors which drive
avoidance. The creative itself is a key driver, and Millward
audiences away from content.
passively collect and measure audiences to channels and
Brown provides many clients with critical assessments on the potential of specific ads. From the Kantar Media
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
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Millward Brown’s Link identifies the potential effectiveness
whether an ad will be successful if watched or “tuned”.
of an ad and is validated to sales. The Link database
Millward Brown’s research on what constitutes strong
contains thousands of ads across a range of categories
creative illustrates the importance of engaging viewers in
and brands. DIRECTView is a managed RPD panel of over
a branded fashion (branded engagement) so an ad gets
100,000 digital households, representative of DIRECTV’s
noticed and recalled in association with the brand. If an ad
national footprint of over 17.5m subscribing households.
engages viewers, the advertiser has a greater opportunity
(See figure 1)
to create associations about the brand that could generate a response (persuasion). Combined, branded engagement and persuasion help us understand the creative potential of a commercial in market. Even though TV is a passively consumed media (See Figure 2), we know that some ads are more likely to engage with consumers in a negative way and be fast forwarded or ‘tuned away’ from, and these contain certain creative characteristics.
Figure 1
Our analysis focused on a given month of Kantar Media’s second-by-second TV tuning for 184 ads that had been pre-tested via Millward Brown Link across a range of categories. Our goal was to address two questions: •
what creative metrics from a pre-test can predict audience tuneaway
•
how media placement and measurable influences can
Figure 2
impact the results Aligning these databases enables us to provide guidance
From analyses that we have completed across the two
on how to optimize both creative and media placement to
datasets we know there are a number of creative aspects
minimize commercial tuneaway and maximize advertising
that relate to tuneaway which can be grouped together into
return on investment.
three clear dimensions, as indicated in Figure 3. Firstly viewers need to have a strong negative reaction to a
UNDERSTANDING THE CREATIVE
commercial in order to actively change the channel and tune away. They find the commercial ‘unpleasant’, dislike it,
Understanding which creative elements relate to tuneaway
or feel inadequate or annoyed when watching it. The key
will provide an early warning signal to help advertisers
finding being, consumers have to engage with the
minimize ad avoidance from a content perspective and
commercial in the first place, in order to take action
provide insight that is actionable before the commercial is
against it.
aired. It is important to note that tuneaway provides an understanding of ad avoidance, but does not indicate
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
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Personal relevance also plays an important part, if
For the purposes of this analysis, we used RPD to identify
consumers have no interest in the category or brand, they
7 measurable media influences to determine which are the
are more likely to tune away. This corresponds with how we
most prominent in gauging audiences tuning away from the
know brains process information. We know that the brain
commercials. These include; program, network/channel,
prioritizes information of relevance to current or future
daypart, commercial length, the pod within the program,
goals and emotion is a big cue to the brain of something
position in pod and product category (see figure 4).
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that is relevant and important. Finally, if the message contained in the ad lacks relevance or credibility for consumers, then they are also more likely to tune away.
Figure 4
Broad analysis of the tuning behavior to all commercials has helped us to identify some key trends. For example, ads which are shown first in pod tend to have higher levels of tuneaway. Program also affects the ad’s performance
Figure 3
with respect to tuneaway, as does the product category being advertised. For example, some categories, such as
Therefore, from a creative standpoint, the advertising idea
Entertainment, experience lower levels whereas others,
has to resonate with consumers and tap into issues of
such as Automotive, experience higher levels of channel
importance to them. The challenge is to talk about the
switching.
brand in a way that is relevant to the consumer’s current mindset or broader values and goals to help minimize
We have used these data to develop a new performance
potential tuneaway.
metric – the Audience Tuneaway Index (ATI). All of the media influences listed above impact on the performance of campaigns, and so by using broad commercial
UNDERSTANDING MEDIA PLACEMENT
benchmarks we can control for each influence and
The effectiveness of an ad depends largely on where
calculate how campaigns would perform in an average
and how that commercial is received, or its media
media environment.
“environment”. Media placement can be measured on a
We have included ATI in our study of tuneaway, calculating
range of factors, or media influences, relating to the buying
benchmarks for each of the seven media influences and
strategy employed.
applying them to the spots that ran in our 184 campaigns, to understand the impact that the media placement had on each one.
1. Cognitive Neuroscience, Marketing and Research: Separating Fact from Fiction, Graham Page and Jane Raymond ESOMAR Congress 2006
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
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THE REAL VALUE – COMBINING CREATIVE AND MEDIA PLACEMENT RESULTS
Despite the media placement, the value of the creative remains critical. Audience tuneaway does not inform us if the commercial was remembered in conjunction with
Although analyzing creative and media results separately
the brand, or whether it drove sales. As such, tuneaway
provides useful and interesting insights, the real power lies
analyses complement other commercial performance
in combining media and creative aspects to understand
measures and provide an additional diagnostic to
how they interact to explain tuneaway.
understand if an ad has the potential to be tuned away and
Following the analyses that were conducted on each
can be further optimized.
individual set of data, we built a structural equation model across the combined datasets to isolate and dimensionalize the effects of creative and media placement on tuneaway.
ACTIVATING THE MODEL TO HELP ADVERTISERS
While we know creative has a critical impact, the structural
The meta-analysis we conducted on the structural equation
equation model demonstrates that media plays an even
model enables us to understand the overall trends and
stronger role, accounting for 75% of tuneaway.
causes of audience tuneaway. However, we are also able
(See figure 5).
to analyze the performance of individual campaigns and pinpoint areas of strength and weakness. This can help in understanding whether certain types of creative are more likely to drive higher levels of tuneaway and identifying warning signs to look out for before a commercial is aired. We have analyzed a mixture of campaigns to demonstrate the merits of our integrated creative/media approach. We found examples of campaigns which scored well creatively in Link but performed poorly in terms of their tuneaway, and others which were weaker creatively but managed to minimize ad avoidance. Examples such as these enable
Figure 5
us to understand, in more detail, the relationship between creative and media and to identify specific elements
This can be explained by typical TV tuning behavior. As we
that contributed to this performance. This illustrates
have seen, from a creative standpoint viewers generally
how advertisers can use the measurement tools to
have to really dislike an ad or have it not be relevant to
help minimize tuneaway at both the creative and media
actively change the channel. From a media standpoint
placement stages.
though, there are multiple factors which will impact even the most powerful creative. Many consumers will intuitively
CASE STUDY 1 – STRONG CREATIVE
change the channel as soon as the commercial break starts, and certain programming is better at retaining
The first two campaigns we investigated were from the
audiences. For example, news or sports may impact the
Electronic Goods category and were both creatively strong,
way in which the commercials within it are consumed,
with good sales potential. They were personally relevant
compared to a genre such as drama which usually requires
to consumers, considered to contain both relevant and
continuous engagement to follow a storyline through a
credible messages and elicited a low negative emotional
commercial pod.
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
reaction. We expected both ads to have low levels of tune
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away. However, while the first of these ads went on to score
Although Campaign C saw higher levels of ad avoidance,
as expected in market, the second had some issues with
as expected, Campaign D went on to achieve low levels of
media placement resulting in higher tuneaway.
tuneaway, despite its creative weakness.
(See Figure 6)
When we investigated the media placement findings we
The Average Tuneaway Indices show us how the ads would
noticed that for Campaign C, in addition to issues with its
have fared in a completely average media environment, by
creative, the media placement drove significantly higher
controlling for the various media influences like channel,
tuneaway when compared with all other ads in the category
position in break, etc.. In this case both ads achieved similar
(see Figure 7). So, in effect, two negative aspects affected
scores, indicating that there must have been a media effect
the ad – the creative and media.
causing the difference in the actual levels of tuneaway
For Campaign D, while there were issues with the creative,
achieved. We found that the programs and channels
the media placement strategy for this brand was much
selected for campaigns B were more likely to be tuned
better. Most programming chosen performed well, as did
away.
the first-in-pod spots which were focused in breakfast content as opposed to primetime. While this was not a stronger ad creatively, media placement clearly helped compensate for performance and minimized tuneaway. The ATI calculation supports this finding, with both ads again achieving similar scores when we control for the various media influences, suggesting that if they had both been placed in a completely average media environment they would have seen a similar performance. As it happens, the media chosen by each brand caused the differences in tuneaway that were observed.
Figure 6
For this case, Link assessed the overall effectiveness of the commercials at the pre-test stage and with this new learning we ascertained that there were no issues with the creative in terms of potential tuneaway. RPD demonstrated that even with strong creative, media placement plays a critical role in terms of retaining an audience.
CASE STUDY 2 – WEAKER CREATIVE The third and fourth campaigns we evaluated gave us the
Figure 7
opposite perspective. Both of these were weaker ads from a creative viewpoint, with a lower likelihood of a potential
These final two ads demonstrate that there was an
sales effect and a higher tuneaway potential. Levels of
opportunity to improve both creative executions before they
personal relevance were low, they both created a strong
launched to minimize tuneaway. They also reinforce how
negative emotional reaction and the message that they
RPD can help optimize future media placement plans.
portrayed was either low in terms of relevance or credibility.
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
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OVERALL CONCLUSIONS
with Kantar Media’s Return Path Data, offering insight to optimize future media placement to reduce tuneaway.
Consumers will continue to evolve with digital media, actively selecting relevant video content and consuming it
Ultimately, our measurement helps to maximize advertising
on their own terms. To understand audiences in this digital
Return on Investment.
evolution, programmers and advertisers need additional
AUTHORS
measurement practices to provide enhanced accountability and insight. Commercial tuneaway does represent a
Millward Brown:
significant loss in both audience and media investment, but
Helen Fearn, Director Global Innovations
there are metrics available that can help analyze campaigns
Mitzi Lorentzen, VP Client Solutions, Communications Development Research
from both a creative and a media placement standpoint, to manage and reduce ad avoidance.
Kantar Media Audiences:
Millward Brown and Kantar Media have developed an enhanced commercial measurement technique to evaluate
Jeff Boehme, Chief Research Officer
the effect of tuneaway and help in minimizing it. Early
Alex North, Product Manager: RapidView
warning signs identified at the creative stage via Link give the opportunity to modify the creative and help reduce potential tuneaway. Media placement can be assessed
2011 Millward Brown & Kantar Media Measuring Acceptance and Avoidance of TV Advertising to Maximize ROI
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