In the online ad world, so much is measurable. You can know how many browsers viewed a page or an ad, you know how many interacted with or clicked on an ad You can know how many of those browsers
immediately visited the advertiser's site, or how many visited the site days or weeks later. Advertisers and their agencies can track and manage their online ad campaigns on a census-based
cost-per-thousand or cost-per click or cost-per-action/acquisition basis. That has not been possible on TV, but with the growing digitization of the television infrastructure and the recent
availability of second-by-second anonymous television set-top-box data at significant scale, it's clearly coming.
While many can argue about how fast we will see Internet Protocol-driven TV
sets at scale, we will certainly see Internet-like measurement and campaign management impact the TV advertising market very, very soon.
Some areas of TV advertising will be impacted sooner
than others. The "tune-in" business, where network and program marketers deploy "on-air" promos to build audiences for their shows, is already being impacted. In this world,
viewing is "buying" and set-top-box data can already identify which viewers out of millions and millions saw promos and which of those viewers actually tuned-in to the promoted show hours,
days or weeks later. The value of using this anonymous "return path" data from set-top boxes to better schedule "on-air" promos is already becoming self-evident. Here are two very
straightforward examples that my scientists have uncovered recently:
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Some TV viewers are much more responsive to "on-air" promos than others. We analyzed the
"responsiveness" (did the recipients of the promos actually watch the promoted show) to "on-air" promotions by viewers that have watched just one episode of a program, but were
very attentive to it (they watched at least one-half of it). When presented promos for episodes in the future, they were three times more likely to watch the show than similar viewers that did not see
a promo. Yes. 3X.
Swapping over-saturated promos between sister channels can dramatically improve their effectiveness. As all us who watch television know, the
same viewers see the same promos for the same shows way too many times. That is because networks use their own network inventory to promote their own shows, but only rarely promote their shows on
other channels. Set-top -box data reveals that scientifically swapping "on-air" promos past points of saturation between two or more networks improves their effectiveness in actually driving
viewership -- from two to 17 times. Yes. 2X to 17X.
What does this mean? It means that data is going to begin changing the way some television advertising is purchased or
managed -- finally -- and "tune-in" is quite likely to be first in line. It certainly won't happen overnight, but the multiples involved are clearly too great to be ignored. 2%
improvements won't move markets, but 20% or 2X improvements will. This is going to have a lot of impact in TV measurements, metrics, processes and, very likely, business models. It will certainly
be disruptive to many of the incumbents -- and will also present many of them with extraordinary new opportunities -- but it will certainly be crazy getting there. What do you think?