BNB

Dan Leahul

Sarah Messer, the head of commercial research and insight at ITV, is speaking about the tipping of the scales in control, back into the hands of the researchers.
The question of control offers an interesting perspective for researchers, who Messer admitted, don’t yet have all the answers.

Online audiences continue to grow, at a rate of 8% per year, and time online has quadrupled in the past couple of years. It was found that average people spend 6 minutes more online than they do reading books, newspapers or magazines.

Television online media players have seen considerable growth, BBC iPlayer grew 88% from January 08 to April 08 and ITV.com viewership has grown 200% year-on-year in September 08.

Messer said that the research industry is coming around to idea that when working individually the learning is small, instead collaborative is key. Some examples of collaboration are companies like JiCims and BMWG.

Tracking technology has also been developing at good pace allowing better research and changing the way researchers work, giving more control back,
Messer gave the IAB And Thinkbox TV+online study that was recently released. The study itself came from desire to see how the two, online and tv, work together.
The study used mixed methodology with 3,000 respondents. It found that TV content is increasingly being viewed online, 66% of respondents watch tv online, 50% on ITV.com and BBC iPlayer type websites, more than half use YouTube.

58% say they watch online when missed a programme the night before, and more said they went online to watch a whole series
25% watch previews online, and to viewers there is little difference to TV and online, the difference is that they access it when they want and how they want it.
Messer asks what does mean for advertisers?

Her research found that TV ads are being sought and shared online, and 3/5 people look for TV ads online and 1/5 have forwarded a link on to friends.
Pre and post rolls have been traditionally been the bane of online video, however, the IAB suggests change in this attitude, people now expect them in exchange for good quality of product.

Men are also more likely than women to seek out brands or advertisements online that they saw on TV.
The computer use to have purely functional use, mainly for research and communication, but now being entertained and relaxing are growing motivators for going online.
ITV found that TV and online advertising deliver across both hard and soft metrics.

There are five types of people who watch TV online, some want to watch lie broadcast because couldn’t make it to TV, others want to catch up at different time, other want to see clips that aren’t available through TV, others want to participate like The X Factor style voting programmes and others want to watch archived footage that is not available on TV anymore.

95% of respondents mentioned that they remembered the pre-roll advertisements when watching TV online and generated most impact for advertisers.
Shorter advertisements online were found to be better than longer, but more testing is needed.

Messer said that, from a researching standpoint, control is being taking away from them, but technology is making it easier to gain it back, which will likely continue over the next few years, down road towards accepted monetary systems and understanding.