• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 19, 2004

CBS is poised to release startling new research that could go a long way toward dispelling some of the anxiety marketers are feeling over the threat digital video recorders represent to TV ad exposure. The research indicates that far from the negative impact fast-forwarding through TV commercials via DVRs are assumed to have, the process may actually enhance a key attribute advertisers and agencies seek with their TV ad campaigns: recall.

The research, which the network plans to release in about two weeks, was based on a study of a new in depth study on the viewing habits of DVR households, which found that they fast-forwarded through about 75 percent of the commercials they view in playback mode. While that is no surprise and is consistent with the findings of numerous other research studies conducted on DVR users, the network followed up with recall research indicating that those same people were able to recall 23 percent of the commercials they fast-forwarded through.

"You wouldn't get that kind of recall if you asked people to watch a regular TV commercial," quipped Dave Poltrack, executive vice president-research and planning at CBS, who disclosed the finding during a panel discussion on the future of television research at an International Radio and Television Society Foundation conference in New York.

While it did not explicitly measure the recall levels of commercials fast-forwarded via DVRs, a report on DVRs and video-on-demand programming produced by InsightExpress and MediaPost earlier this year arrived at similar conclusions: that fast-forwarding through commercials represented a better opportunity for commercial recall than how viewers avoid commercials in non-DVR environments - by changing the channel to avoid them.

"They have to look at them to fast-forward through them," observed CBS' Poltrack, offering an explanation as to the higher recall levels caused by the process.

In fact, a number of agencies, including The Media Kitchen, have been experimenting with ways of utilizing fast-forward modes to enhance, not deteriorate TV commercial exposure. One concept being bantered about is creative that could also double as a six-second commercial - the amount of time it takes to fast-forward through a standard 30-second commercial - during fast-forward mode.

But CBS' Poltrack suggested that even these approaches are not without controversy. He cited an announcement this week by DVR provider TiVo, which is offering a new advertising opportunity in which special ads are superimposed on TiVo screens while TiVo users are zipping through regularly scheduled commercials.

Poltrack says that notion made him cringe and that advertisers he has spoken with also were concerned by the backlash it might cause among consumers seeking to avoid advertising altogether.

While they did not agree on all the points, other experts on the panel, which also included Horizon Media's Brad Adgate, the Advertising Research Foundation's Tony Jarvis, and Lifetime Television's Tim Brooks, tended to agree with Poltrack's central point that TV viewing and measurement are poised to change dramatically.

Citing his new DVR research, Poltrack pointed out that about half of viewing in DVR homes is done in "live" mode, while half is done in "playback" mode. About 40 percent of the time, DVR households are also "recording something for the future."

"Think about that," Poltrack told the audience, a mix of industry professionals and leading academics on the subject of television. "Viewing behavior will change."

The big dilemma among the panelists was figuring out exactly how to measure that changing behavior. While most agreed that the current system was no longer adequate, they differed on how it should change, or what should replace it.

Noting that the current system was created in 1950 and was "tweaked" in 1987 with the introduction of people meters, Lifetime's Brooks said there are many promising new methods, but none have been vetted enough to offer a clear path, including Arbitron's promising new portable people meters (PPM).

However, other panelists suggested that a plan by Arbitron and VNU to develop a new single-source measurement system that combines PPM measurement of media exposure with VNU's measurement of product purchasing, represented a potential leap into a new direction. That system, dubbed Project Apollo, has been backed by Procter & Gamble, which is trying to convince other marketers to get behind it.

While CBS' Poltrack says he is intrigued by that system, he says he remains concerned by its "economics," citing a business plan that would have P&G pay for only "one-fiftieth" of the cost of Apollo, which some people estimate will cost as much as $100 million just to get up and running.

Horizon's Adgate nonetheless says Apollo represents a potential breakthrough in audience measurement if the economics can be worked out. He also cited the potential of a new measurement system developed from the growing legion of digital set-top TV tuners, though questions remain about how representative that data would be for the overall population.

But it was the ARF's Jarvis who offered the most aggressive scenario for the TV audience measurement business five years from today, suggesting it might be one that is no longer controlled by Nielsen: It will be "industry controlled. We will define it and we will get the measurement we want."

"That sounds good to me," says CBS' Poltrack, adding, "There's not much I can add to that."

Ironically, on Thursday Universal NBC announced a new seven-year contract for TV ratings services with Nielsen Media Research, suggesting that the Peacock Network, at least, believes Nielsen will be around more than five years from now.