NEW ORLEANS – The 2010 FIFA World Cup was not just a pivotal moment for South Africa, the first African nation to ever host the finals, or for Spain, who took home its first world title. For its American sports broadcaster ESPN, it was also the debut of a research initiative unprecedented in scope, designed to study consumer behavior around major sporting events.
At a CTAM Summit session on Tuesday, ESPN’s VP of integrated media research, Glenn Enoch, took a room full of attendees through the results of its World Cup cross-platform research project, ESPN XP, which measured media usage and advertiser effects across its TV, radio, Internet, mobile and print platforms.
“We believe that this is the largest media research project ever undertaken”, Enoch enthused. “Over the 31 days (of the tournament), we enlisted the support of 15 different suppliers, sometimes with two working on the same aspect so that we could get different perspectives. Overall, we had a big focus on trying new techniques and methodology to see if we could move the whole cross media research platform forward.”
He said that the World Cup, which he described as “a true TV event”, was a perfect starting point for this type of research.
“It was an ideal opportunity because we were covering this event on all five of our platforms. The second reason was that the World Cup was played pretty much during the day, due to the time zone differences, meaning that people were at work and essentially forced out of their normal media behaviour. We were able to track, therefore, their use of some of these other platforms because they didn’t have that TV readily available.”
Enoch said that 160.5 million Americans (55%) consumed World Cup content across all of ESPN’s platforms during the month-long contest. ESPN Research+Analytics calculated that out-of-home TV viewing and usage of non-TV platforms added 1.5 million viewers per minute (46%) to its World Cup TV average audience.
“When we looked at this cross platform research, we didn’t see the cannibalization of TV, a replacement of TV”, he continued. “What we’re seeing is an enhancement of the experience of media consumption by use of these other platforms.”
The research also explored what a sponsor must do to be most effective in the digital era when media is being consumed in “new markets of time”, for example, on a mobile device in line at the grocery store or on the sidelines of a child’s soccer game. The ESPN XP analysis determined that advertisers need to have presence across all platforms to ensure not only exposure, but also “authenticity of sponsorship”.
Enoch said that the advertisers who put together “the most cohesive story” recorded the greatest impact. The World Cup project found that a coordinated multiplatform campaign produced better results on the key performance metrics of recall, brand attitude, purchase intent and brand affinity.
On certain performance indicators, advertising on mobile alone performed as well as advertising on TV alone. Mobile in combination with TV drove the highest branded word-of-mouth conversations for advertisers. One case study showed that in a media mix, mobile combined with magazines worked as a powerful pair to drive interest in a new product.
Further analysis revealed:
– The multi-platform user is a multi-location user. In a result that corroborates the ‘best available screen’ principle, ESPN Research+Analytics found that a users location largely determined the mix of media used.
– Fans spent 4.9 billion gross minutes with ESPN.com and ESPN Mobile properties. Translating that into the platform-agnostic metric of average audience, ESPN Research+Analytics found that 110,000 persons used ESPN digital media to consume World Cup content in the average minute.
– Non-TV platforms added a million persons to ESPN’s average audience. Internet use accounted for 61% of this usage, and Internet video, including usage of ESPN3.com, represented a third of the total.
– Radio, digital media and print extended ESPN’s reach. Each day, 27.7 million persons used ESPN World Cup content, and 10% of them did so solely on a non-TV platform, an incremental daily reach lift of 2.8 million persons.
– 18% of ESPN World Cup consumption was done out-of-home. 861,000 persons, or 18% of its total average audience, consumed the World Cup in out-of-home locations. 44% of this usage was at work, 16% in cars, 15% in bars and restaurants, and 24% in other locations.
– Cross-platform offerings brought new exposure to ESPN brands. 22% of consumers of ESPN World Cup content said they tried an ESPN platform for the first time during the tournament. The most frequently mentioned platforms were ESPN.com and ESPN Radio, followed by ESPN3.com.
– ESPN’s “beyond the ratings” lift averaged 46%, but was 56% on weekdays. Monday through Friday, out-of-home TV viewing and usage of non-TV platforms lifted the network’s in-home TV audience by 56%. Fans were more likely to be at work and other locations on weekdays, resulting in more out-of-home TV viewing and a greater reliance on radio and digital media.
