ESPN’s mission statement “to serve sports fans wherever sports are watched, listened to, discussed, debated, read about or played,” needed to be quantified with research that delivered equally powerful insights to serve advertisers’ need for reliable metrics. As one of the true cross-media brands, fans dial into ESPN any number of ways—via TV, the Internet, mobile devices, radio and print.
A new lens was needed for looking across media... |
While data existed for each individual medium, exactly how ESPN fans navigated across platforms needed further study. In order for advertisers to fully understand the value of their investment, both in terms of singular platforms and cross-media exposures, a new lens was needed for looking across media.
Modeling (im)perfect
Whether you sit on the fusion or single-source side of the research model debate, both represent research methodologies, which means that they are subject to the inherent problems of data bias or error. Areas of vulnerability include sampling error, response bias, measurement issues and modeling inaccuracies in imputation, forecasting, weighting or integration.
Even so-called “pure” single-source data bases are anything but. In point of fact, they may contain more error and bias than fused data due to lower cooperation rates and less precise measurement techniques (e.g., self-reported vs. metered behavior). By using all available information, a reliable picture of behavior can be pieced together. In the case of ESPN, that meant integrating or fusing singular databases together and using the single source Nielsen Convergence Panel to validate the data fusion work, while also delivering insights not available via fusion.
Media usage across a variety of platforms is integrated together... |
A tale of two methods
Data fusion involves a process whereby media usage across a variety of platforms is integrated together. The Nielsen TV/Internet data fusion combines data from the National People Meter database of TV viewing households with the Nielsen Online NetView Panel of Internet surfing households to deliver a measure of time spent and reach to sports programs and websites (including home and work use) by demographic. (See Sidebar, Nielsen TV/Internet Fusion Data Base.)
The Nielsen Convergence Panel is a non-currency panel of homes where both in-home TV viewing and in-home Internet usage are measured giving a direct measurement of the interaction between these media and providing a comparison and validation point for the TV/Internet data fusion. (See Sidebar, Nielsen Convergence Panel.)
The fusion approach provides a reliable look across platforms for cross-media brands... |
Outcomes in
Initial results from the validation exercise that compared like-for-like results between the data fusion and Conversion Panel data are heartening. They indicate that the percent of people watching TV and using the Internet for shared and exclusive users are very close between the two research approaches. With results within a few percentage points of each other, the exercise proved that the fusion approach provides a reliable look across platforms for cross-media brands.
Topline findings suggest that about 75% of people have Internet access and virtually all households have TVs (98%). Those without Internet access tend to be older, lower income and heavier TV viewers. The heaviest Internet users also tend to be slightly heavier TV viewers. Conversely, light Internet users also tend to be light TV viewers. Although these findings may seem counterintuitive, they surfaced in both the fusion and Convergence Panel data.
Watching the watchers
Initial fusion findings for ESPN and ESPN.com show that over half of Persons 2+ tune to ESPN or use ESPN.com and 5% of ESPN’s combined TV-Internet audience use ESPN.com exclusively in a month. In March 2008, 123 million people accessed ESPN on TV and another 21 million clicked in through ESPN.com. Among households with either TV or Internet access, 84% opted for TV viewing, 10% used both media and 6% used ESPN.com exclusively.
The more they watch, the more ways they follow... |
The more, the better
There is no mixed message from mixed media viewers. ESPN enthusiasts like their sports, and the more they watch sports, the more ways they follow it. Sports fans who watch ESPN and use ESPN.com were heavier ESPN media users, spending 27% more time watching ESPN TV than TV-only users and 50% more time using ESPN.com than the Internet-only viewers.
Next steps
NielsenConnections is working to fuse mobile internet usage onto the TV/Internet fusion data and results will be available shortly. This work is connected to Nielsen's Three Screen initiative - understanding consumers across TV, Internet and Mobile. An initial report is available (see sidebar).
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