• by Wayne Friedman , June 17, 2011

Are TV viewers tuning away from your commercial to another channel, or other activity? A new research tool looks to find out why and how to change that.

Millward Brown and Kantar Media say they have developed an "enhanced commercial measurement" that can analyze creative and media placement of commercials on a second-by-second basis. The companies can identify the impact of the message's creative and compare it to media placement.

The companies say they can measure creative and media influences that impact audience "tune-away" by product category and brand. Its survey looked at 184 commercials across a broad range of product categories for its analysis.

The creative variables include "lack of relevance," "negative emotional reaction" and "lack of message relevance/credibility." Media factors include channel, program, duration, the pod in a program, position in pod, daypart and product category.

The companies are hoping to develop a "score" for tune-away -- as well as trends around specific time-shifting, frequency of exposure, and viewer attributes.

Millward Brown and Kantar Media say better software is needed to measure commercial avoidance in an age of growing digital screens, as well as current time-shifting technologies.