• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 29, 2004

In what appears to be the most aggressive effort yet by a television network to tie its advertising sales to the involvement viewers have with the programming and advertising it airs, Court TV today will unveil plans for a new advertising metric that will serve as the centerpiece of its 2004-05 upfront sales pitch. During its upfront sales presentation to Madison Avenue in New York this morning, Court will make a case that the CPI - or cost per involvement - is a better way of gauging the impact of its highly involved viewers on advertising effectiveness. The offer isn't just the latest effort to spin the ad industry's obsession with audience involvement. It comes complete with a mathematical formula that utilizes market-accepted data from Nielsen and other sources as its basis.

"We're taking it out to dollars and cents. How ballsy is that?" crows Debbie Reichig, senior vice president-sales strategy at Court, who along with the network's Executive Vice President-General Manager/Sales Charlie Collier, previewed the pitch to MediaDailyNews.

Collier says the effort is the latest progression of Court TV's so-called "return on investigation" theme, or what the network has been pitching as "ROI," a play off of Madison Avenue's focus on return on investment for ad spending. The effort began two years ago, when Court TV touted the "lean forward" aspect of its programming. It was backed up last year when Court introduced its "sticky" campaign, which tied that involvement to higher attentiveness to ad messages utilizing a custom analysis of Nielsen data that was correlated to ad attentiveness studies from other syndicated researchers, such as Knowledge Networks, Mediamark Research Inc. and Simmons.

Court is utilizing those same research elements in its 2004-05 pitch, but in a more standardized and rigorous way based around a "generic" mathematical formula that can be applied to any advertiser's brand. Reichig says Court will work will advertisers and agencies to develop customized approaches that address specific needs of their brands.

While Court is not yet prepared to guarantee audience delivery against the involved viewers, he said the network would be prepared to so if and when the industry agrees on a common definition that could be developed as a new Nielsen "market break," something that could be tabulated as a standard post-buy analysis.

"If you believe that not all spots are equal, this is a way for us to set ourselves apart," says Collier. "What we're trying to do is tie it more to the buying process, but make it more than just a CPM. We want to look at an involved viewer as a new market break."

Reichig says Court is not likely to take its ROI pitch to the next level of advertising effectiveness: direct product sales effects. "We can't tie it to sales, because there are too many variables that we can't account for, such as the creativity of the advertising message. But what we want to do is tie involvement into the buying process and make this more than just a CPM. We want to look at the involved viewer as a new market break."