• B&C, Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:08 AM

A record number of people watched the FIFA 2010 World Cup on ESPN. Even more watched on online and via mobile, listened on radio, checked in online and perused ESPN the Magazine. It was a great way to examine multiplatform behavior of consumer and the results of cross-platform advertising. The first take away from the study, dubbed ESPN XP, was that multiple platforms don't cannibalize TV viewing, said Glenn Enoch, vice president integrated media research, at ESPN. In fact, the more platforms consumers used, the more TV they watched on average.

For the big numbers, ESPN's research found that 160.5 million American's consumed ESPN content over 31 days. It also had an average TV audience of 3.3 million. It found that 22% of Americans tried a new ESPN platform over the course of the tourney and when the final whistle sounded, the average World Cup consumer averaged using 2.3 platforms per day. For advertising, Enoch said that degree multiple platform exposure strengthened ad campaigns. For one advertiser, awareness of a new product rose from 52% using TV and mobile to 78% when the magazine was added to the mix. Radio increased the awareness to 85% and the Internet ratcheted it up to 86%.

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