• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, July 8, 2013

The goal of The Maxxcom Collaborative, a forum in which 243 attendees shared ideas during lunch on June 13 at the Helen Mills Theater in New York City, is to help navigate the future of the consumer and advertiser relationship within the exponentially evolving televisual landscape. The theme: extending marketing reach through electronic devices and cross-platform measurement.

The opening speaker, Condé Nast’s Scott McDonald, SVP, Research & Insights, shared the following on magazine cross-platform access:

1. Digital subscribers appreciated that digital editions expanded the amount of content from the print editions,
2. 80% said that the supplemental content added value to the overall cross-platform subscription,
3. Over 50% of subscribers who engaged with an interactive feature had greater recall of the advertisement, and
4. Overwhelmingly, consumers wanted the option of reading their magazines on the tablet platform. 

Howard Shimmel, SVP, Ad Sales & Sports Research, Turner Broadcasting, presented findings from Time Warner’s Medialab on the impact of social media and second screen (sync) apps utilizing biometrics and eye tracking analysis. One case study featured research on lab viewers watching and engaging with 30 minutes of TBS’ late-night program “Conan.” Paradoxically, the study revealed higher engagement among pairs watching together versus solo viewers -- including the ads -- and that engagement declines during ads were less severe when pairs. with or without access to social media, viewed together versus lone viewing. Also, utilization of audio in a proactive way other than as passive background to video in commercials helped increase engagement. The following are Time Warner Medialab’s five principles of TV, Social & 2^nd Screen Engagement:

1. Embrace the Facts: More than 9 in 10 young adults (18-34) have mobile phones and 8 out of 10 of those are smartphones. They do not turn off these electronic companions when they choose to watch TV.
2. Social Viewing More Engaging than Solo Viewing: See preceding paragraph.
3. Social Viewing Fills the Gaps: Inevitably, declines in engagement with the content will occur at times during the show or during ads. Social and 2^nd screen viewing fill these gaps and maintain engagement at higher levels vs. solo viewers.
4. Audio is Critical: Two screens may be present but there is still only one audio track. Those who engage in second screen behaviors while the TV is on still listen to the TV.
5. Sync Apps Provide an Opportunity to Increase Engagement: Those who use these apps are engaged and engaged viewers are receptive.

ESPN’s Glenn Enoch, VP, Integrated Media Research, and Kelly Johnson, Senior Director, Integrated Media & Promotion, updated the attendees on their cross-media measurement initiative Project Blueprint, which is designed to measure five platforms: TV, radio, PC, smartphone, and tablet. The five phase road map:

1. Platform usage,
2. Calibration panel,
3. The duplication engine,
4. Integration of calibration panel with duplication engine, and
5. User interface.

To date, ESPN has implemented the first two phases.

Preliminary discoveries: adding digital platforms to the mix of ESPN programming did not decrease TV viewing. In fact, the more platforms utilized, the more time spent with TV and in total.

The Maxxcom Collaborative’s Meeting of Dadaists provided a series of presentations that dealt with the quest to extend the reach of linear television campaigns through the use of cross-media video platforms and Rentrak census currency: broadband, social TV and live broadcast mobile. Rather than synopsize each of the presenter’s salient points as we have done in prior paragraphs, we requested that each Dadaist synthesize their opinion in their own words on how they utilized Rentrak data to accomplish their goal of extending the reach of linear TV:

Collective – Justin Evans, EVP, Product Strategy

Collective’s goal is to help brands extend the reach of TV using digital video. To do this, Collective uses Rentrak data to analyze how much reach a brand is achieving in their TV campaigns. In the case of one retailer, we saw that they were reaching all but 9 million households in the U.S. – strong coverage, with excellent composition percentages in the audience target.

However, even this strong plan showed that 22 million households were seeing the ad fewer than 5 times. To help this brand fill the gap – reach the “unreached” 9 million and the “underserved” 22 million – Collective used Rentrak data again, this time to create digital target groups so that these households could be reached through broadband video. To accomplish this, Rentrak and Collective mapped out the household characteristics of the “unreached” and “underserved” households onto Collective’s online targeting database.

The scale of Rentrak’s data – 8.5 million households in their TV Essential product, with coverage of virtually 100% of U.S. zip codes – helped to do this with precision, but in an anonymized, privacy-friendly fashion. Once the mapping was completed, a pool of cookies was created by Collective representing the “unreached” and “underserved.” Now those households may be exposed with broadband video and the retailer was able to supplement its TV investments with a high level of efficiency.

This solution has been adopted by many Fortune 500 brands who wish to make their TV investments work harder and fill the inevitable gaps in even a brilliantly planned TV campaign.

Trendrr – Mark Ghuneim, Co-Founder, CEO

Trendrr compared social data with viewership data and found that when commercials air, conversation on social media increased as viewers discussed what they had just seen. When a program briefly returns during a commercial break, we found that social conversation tends to dip as viewers assumed the show was back, but spikes again when the commercial break resumes.

The social data was provided by Trendrr with the viewership data from Rentrak utilizing its second by second viewing reportage. The programs chosen included those with the most ‘engaged’ social media audiences on select networks. As noted, audiences were found to discuss the program during commercial breaks, and those that chose to discuss the program before and after it aired.

For this second scenario, Trendrr found that some program audiences remain relatively quiet while a program is on-air. These audiences appear to watch the program, and engage at the beginning, or after the credits have rolled. The assumption can be made that these audiences’ are on the ‘first screen’ – presumably watching during commercial breaks – while audiences that engage social media during breaks are distracted, and their eyes divert to the second screen. Understanding when an audience’s attention is on the TV helps to provide deeper more integrated, relevant experiences to the target audience.

TVB – Stacy Lynn Schulman, SVP, Chief Research Officer

Whether it's national or local, all content is moving across screens in the consumer world today. In local markets, the need for portable access to content has never been more important as consumers battle fierce weather systems and safety issues on what seems a regular basis.

 Live, local mobile broadcast – provided now in 70% of the Top 50 markets in the Unites States – is free, over-the-air television delivered directly to your mobile device through either an embedded or detachable antenna. There is no need for WiFi or other Internet connection in order to receive the signal, and no additional fees for the basic signal.

The ability to measure this movement across screens, however, has been a difficult course – particularly in local television markets where the traditional television measurement is complicated and out-dated. Dependable measurement of traditional TV viewership in local markets is already lacking, let alone attempting to measure the extension of viewing through mobile devices. Two local station consortia – Mobile Content Ventures and the Mobile 500 Alliance –- have turned to Rentrak to measure how local mobile broadcast audiences are extending the reach of the traditional TV audience. With experience in mobile measurement from relationships with Hiwire and FloTV, Rentrak has demonstrated ability to capture mobile viewing. Data from 37 markets across the United States is expected to be released soon, giving the media and marketing industry the first single-source glimpse of how local broadcast audiences are watching across screens. Stay tuned!

Note: and stay tuned we did. One week following the Maxxcom Collaborative, Dyle, the mobile TV service operated by Mobile Content Ventures (MCV) released initial findings on mobile television usage utilizing Rentrak’s Mobile Essentials service. Key takeaways:

-- The average Dyle mobile TV device tunes in for more than 20 minutes per usage day.

-- Local and national network news represents more than half of the viewing time in some local markets.

-- Usage spikes during critical news cycles, such as during the manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects, in which total viewing minutes were 96% higher than the week prior.

John Carey, Professor of Media Management, Fordham Business School, rounded out the event with a succinct visual presentation of “The Untold Story Behind Mobile Phones.” In his most telling slide of the convergence of texting and driving, he Powerpointed a visual from an outdoor billboard captured in the Midwest: “Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet him.”