The Jan. 11-17 story about ESPN commissioning out-of-home studies to put a more accurate viewing number on its New Year’s Eve College Football Playoff generated a lot of feedback. Several executives questioned whether such a number would have any weight on an ad sales community that pays for people to watch and listen to their messages.
Don McGuire, a media executive-in-residence at the University of North Texas, emailed to say, “I’ll be curious about the response of ESPN’s advertisers. The actual reason we have always done TV ratings is to measure how many viewers see the ads. It’s an advertiser-driven measurement, and bars and large gatherings don’t usually make for attentive commercial-watching.”
Patrick West, CEO and founder of the marketing company The Machine, agreed. West emailed to say, “Sports bars are incredible communal viewing spots totally ignored by traditional Nielsen ratings, so ESPN has that right. But, from experience, advertisers and media agencies dismiss the numbers because there is no audio. Their own experience in sports bars is more of a communal circus than private viewing. It is the old ‘focus group of one’ scenario, and one that is not totally incorrect: Sports bars are a total mess of sounds and distractions. Usually people can’t hear the game audio and surely can’t hear the commercial spot audio. Football is a sports medium that works great without audio. You don’t need to hear the game with the angles, replays and on-screen graphics. The eyeballs are there. But commercials? They are made with audio in mind. Without sound, they fail.”
