TiVo's Ad Scorecard Measures Brand Effectiveness

by Wayne Friedman , February 4, 2011

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Which brands hold on to their viewers the longest in a DVR fast-forwarding world?

Time-shifting service and growing media research company TiVo has launched a free, interactive Web site -- Ad Scorecard -- where brand managers can determine attention, as well as a brand's overall TV effectiveness. This comes from analyzing commercials and how well they retain viewers.

On the site, TiVo says brand managers can figure out whether to shift media to either broadcast or cable networks, shift money around dayparts and programs, or change their creative mix. They can also decide where commercials should be placed in a commercial pod.

The site uses TiVo's main research tool, Stop||Watch ratings service and its second-by-second measurement capability, which is gleaned from its DVR subscriber database.

Because 40% of U.S. households now have DVRs, TiVo says brand managers are particularly interested in fast-forwarding behaviors. With Ad Scorecard, brand managers can figure out when viewers start fast-forwarding during the run of their creative.

In one recent example between fast-food chains McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, it was Burger King that was able to retain the most viewers during recent commercials.

TiVo says it can also analyze TV promotional spots for major broadcast network shows and how they perform against each other. During a recent period, CBS came out the winner by experiencing the least amount of commercial avoidance.

"TiVo's new service showcases just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the various anonymous measurement solutions TiVo offers its customers. They have a free, uncomplicated, yet effective tool which yields invaluable results that others cannot get with just the click of a mouse," stated Tara Maitra, vice president of advertising and research sales for TiVo.

She adds: "TiVo wants to make it easy for all marketers to begin incorporating better metrics into their decision-making processes. We've decided this easy-to-use Web tool is a great way to help people understand more broadly the value of our data."

dvrs, media measurement, television, tv, video

2 comments about "TiVo's Ad Scorecard Measures Brand Effectiveness".

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Doug Garnett from Protonik, LLC, February 4, 2011 at 5:57 p.m.
Einstein is appropriate here: "Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts."
This is extraordinarily true with television. Just because we can measure it doesn't mean it's important.
In fact, I think there's a fallacy in relying much on these measurements.
I have worked with infomercial makers who use dial group analysis to track viewer attitude & attention through a 1/2 hour ad. We've found with this approach is loved by producers who can obsess about detail. But when you step back, it turns out the dial scores have little to do with effectiveness of the ad. The ad's effectiveness has to do with much bigger issues - like whether anyone care about what you're saying.
So with TiVO measurements, truth is we don't know whether this has meaning. It's not something we measure this in the past so it's importance is unproven (but merely assumed by TiVO).
We need to challenge TiVO to answer: If someone clicks away from an ad, is that bad? Not if I have a reminder ad and in 15 seconds the consumer gets my message & remembers my brand. Not if it doesn't interest them and their not in the market for the product. Not if they got enough from the ad for us to have achieved our communication goals.
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Charlene Weisler from Writer, Media Consultant: WeislerMedia.blogspot.com, February 11, 2011 at 10:47 a.m.

I am wondering if TIVO has analyzed different pod formations. Do certain length of pods and number of pods in certain program genres hold audiences better than other pod strategies? I have found in past research that in movies, fewer pods of longer length held audience better than more frequent breaks but shorter pods.