MilePost Online ... Transcript of May 12, 2009 Luncheon Presentation

Nielsen's Lois Miller and Sallie Hirsch Offered a Glimpse into How The Ratings Company Works

Aaron Robinson, MPG President, introducing the President of Nielsen IAG Automotive, Lois Miller, and the company’s Senior VP of Research, Sallie Hirsch. Robinson said, “Nielsen IAG brings the industry relevant and accurate information on how advertising is performing with TV viewers against critical effectiveness measures, helping marketing executives maximize the impact of their investments.

“Today [our guests] will review how the current economic conditions have impacted the way viewers respond to auto advertising. They will be highlighting some of the TV ads that resonated most with consumers in 2008.

“They will share why these ads were so effective with TV viewers, specifically what elements helped make them effective. They also plan to end by revealing a few important trends from early 2009 as automotive advertisers continue to find their footing in the environment.”

[Video shown as intro, quickly recapping a tumultuous 2008.]

Lois Miller, President, Nielsen IAG Automotive: Well, I think we all can see it’s been quite a year, 2008, of radical ups and downs, from the visually stunning opening ceremonies in Beijing to the relentless cadence of the Dow’s downward trend.

It was in this challenging and dynamic environment that automakers had to advertise in 2008, and they’re still trying to navigate 2009. It appeared at times that everybody and everything was on sale, didn’t it? From product launches to sell-down months, carmakers blended Tier 1 and Tier 2 worlds to tell consumers about prices and values.

It was the year of sales events, $2.99 gas, employee pricing, employee pricing plus, red tags, green arrows, “Autobahns for All,” and some were even saved by Zero.

When gas prices soared, many automakers brought out a green message. Hybrids, plug-in hybrids and even electric vehicles were heavily featured.

It was a very challenging year for any advertiser to get his message out.

And yet it’s in this environment, certainly not conducive to buying automobiles, that a few ads stood out from the rest. How do you think they did that?

Well, think about all the critical elements that have to come together for an effective ad.

To start with, there needs to be a great idea. Not a pretty good idea, not a good idea, but an ad agency has to come up with a truly great one. And to be blunt, putting a silver car on a twisty mountain road and ending it with a deal-of-the-month just doesn’t get the job done.

And then the media buying and planning agency has to be able to place that ad on a TV show that is engaging to the viewer. And if you take a great ad and put it in a show that no one is paying attention to, then that advertiser has missed a critical opportunity to maximize their media spend. As a matter of fact, they’ve wasted their dollars.

So it’s this blending, this perfect harmony that comes together to make an ordinary ad something just extraordinary.

So today I’d like to share with you some of the ads that were able to break through even in these tough times. And these were the ads that were most effective despite it all.

So what do we really mean by being effective? Well, simply put, did the viewer remember the ad at all, meaning did it break through the clutter; did they know who the ad was for, what brand or model; did they understand the creative message that was intended in that ad; and did they like it?

So those are the critical elements that constitute effectiveness.

Now honestly, you may have the sexiest ad on TV and it still may not be effective. So effective ads reach out and grab the viewer in some unique way and command attention and clearly state their purpose.

Clearly state their purpose. And that is what you’ll see come alive in these ads.

At Nielsen IAG, we have a panel of over two and a half million historical television viewers who come to our website and answer questions about the TV shows and the ads they saw the previous evening. It is people just like you and me, who are sitting in their living rooms trying to just ignore all of the typical family distractions and watch their favorite programs.

So today we thought we would focus on some of the very best and most effective ads in 2008 for a few key categories. We’re going to look at green ads, sales event campaigns, and simply the absolute best and most effective auto ad of the year.

These are the best of the best, and of course they’re all chosen by this 2.5 million historical panel of TV viewers.

So everybody in this room is going to have a different opinion about the ads. That’s what’s so fascinating about TV. It just transcends all of the barriers among people. And we all have our point of view. But this is what those viewers said, not what we’re saying.

So let’s go to the first group of ads, the green ads. Well, what do we mean by a green ad? We concluded that a green ad had to be more than just a miles per gallon message. It could be about a hybrid or electric vehicle capability. It could be about a recycled product. Anything really environmental in nature.

Interestingly, from 2007 to 2008 the TV viewer saw 41 percent more ads—41 percent more ads—for hybrid or alternate-fuel vehicles on TV. Obviously that was a key theme for a number of automakers.

The most effective green ad of 2008 was from Lexus and their “Missing H” campaign. So let’s take a look at this ad.

[Video shown, Lexus “Missing H,” portraying a world in which all letters H “skip out” from everyday sentences, seeking to “make a fresh go of it.”]

Sallie Hirsch, SVP Research, Nielsen IAG Automotive: What made that ad so effective, I mean I heard some giggles around the room, one thing was the humor in the ad. It was surprising. And that’s what we call a creative hook. That’s one of the key elements of effective advertising, is reaching out, grabbing the viewer in some unique way that they’re remember the next day. Otherwise you’ve lost them.

So that “Missing H” ad campaign, that theme, really grabbed the viewers, they remembered the ad well.

And the second thing Lexus did really well here that helped them break through, they tied that hook into the key message. So the key message is it’s all about the H, all about the hybrid, and that came through loud and clear to viewers.

Miller: Alright. Well, let’s move on to the sales event campaign and look at what was effective in 2008. As I mentioned earlier, 2008 did seem like it was the year of the sales event. Many people in the industry called it that. And as a matter of fact, the average TV viewer saw 50 percent more sales event ads last year than they did in 2007.

And it was really the blending. We used to call them the Tier 2 blending with Tier 1, so it’s now Tire 1 and a half. So a lot of us have referred to it that way.

Think about this for a second: How many ads did you see in a dealership setting? How about an ad talking about Presidents Day? Memorial Day? July Fourth? Labor Day?

So in this type of hyper-competitive and very cluttered environment, it’s quite an accomplishment to even be nominated for one of these Most Effective Sales Events.

But the Most Effective Sales Event campaign for 2008 was in fact VW “Autobahn for All” campaign. So now let’s take a look at it and we’ll talk about it.

[Video shown, suggesting police may let fast VW drivers off with a “watch your speed” warning during a summer sales promo. Bystanding older Beetle sighs, muttering “There’s going to be trouble.”]

Hirsch: So that was no typical summer event there. That was a summer event VW style. And really for viewers that means, they knew this was VW. The little black Beetle, Max, who’s in all their ads, who’s been in their campaigns for months and months before this, that helped them recognize this as a VW ad straight out of the gate.

And VW also has the Autobahn for All, a theme of their event that’s going to resonate with their consumers and identify the brand quickly, and the message. Very successful.

Miller: The last ad from 2008 we’d like to discuss was the single most effective ad of the year. So overall, after looking at literally hundreds and hundreds of new auto ads, it comes down to this one, and it was the Ford “Focus Briana.”

Not only did this ad break through the clutter, but it also gave viewers a dose of reality in a really fun way. So let us share this with you.

[Video shown, an ad featuring a young woman named Briana, who is identified as an owner of another make, road testing a new Focus.]

Hirsch: So that’s a testimonial ad. And not all testimonial ads will work. But this one worked because it was very honest and very surprising. The character they had just resonated with viewers. Her reaction was, was exciting.

And the second thing Ford did to make this campaign successful is, they had a very strong, strategic media placement. Ford “American Idol.” That’s the sponsorship that drove this ad to be successful. They’ve been a sponsor of “American Idol” for many years, so when they air an ad in that program they’re more likely to be recognized as a Ford ad.

Miller: So those were the ads that were most effective during the turbulent times of 2008. But as you can see, there are many different ways to be effective, and also we found, over all the years we’ve been doing this and working with TV viewers, that there are a few key pillars that will help build effectiveness, and we thought we’d share them with you today.

On your table are little cards that we’ve provided for you all that designate the eight pillars.

We’ve reviewed thousands and thousands of automotive ads in the past seven years, and we found a few common elements that do impact effectiveness, and that’s what we call the eight effective pillars.

Let me just make a big statement before we go on. We are not in any way intimating that we have the silver bullet for the great creative, or the silver bullet for the ultimate media plan. That not only would be pompous, but plain-out stupid.

But what we do have is a tracking for seven years of very significant things that we’ve noted in very effective ads that evoke a response and are memorable.

So what we found is, there are four creative pillars, there are four media pillars. And essentially, they need to work together to be ultimately most effective. So we’d like to walk you through these.

The first one is Creative, and there’s no doubt that great creative will drive through that ad. It’s an art, not a science, but we’ve tried to get our arms around it in several ways.

We’re going to show you an ad that debuted in the 2008 Super Bowl that we think will speak for itself, but we’ll just talk a little bit about it after we play it.

[Video shown, an Audi takeoff of Godfather scene in which a man awakens to discover another-brand car part in his bed.]

Miller: A very, very unique ad, right? Even broke some rules. Normally, if you want your ad to be well branded, you put your name and the model up front and drill that in. It didn’t do that until the end. It didn’t have to, did it, because it relied on your recognition of a fabulous, great movie, “The Godfather.” It had the drama of the music that just sort of brought you into that commercial and you stayed with it because you wanted to know whose ad this was for.

It was a motor, not a horse head. So whose motor was it? And that’s what kept you engaged in that ad, and that absolutely is a perfect example of great creative.

So let’s look at the next one: Creative Hook. Ok, so that is the device that creative folks and ad agencies and clients agree will suck you into the ad somehow. And that can be through poignancy, it can be through shock, that can be through music, that can be through drama, or it can be something that you simply don’t expect from that kind of product.

So let’s take a look, now, at an ad that’s on-air right at this moment, and you figure out what the hook is.

[Video shown, Kia Soul ad featuring squirrel-caged hamsters in traffic apparently being liberated by the car.]

Miller: Ok. So, hamsters, right? Who expects a hamster to be driving a vehicle? It was cute, it was funny. It also obviously is geared toward a younger audience, although it makes everybody engaged. And it’s breaking through, Sallie tells me, at record levels and it’s doing exceedingly well.

But that’s the kind of creative hook that just grabs you right from the very start.

So Sallie’s going to tell you about another couple.

Hirsch: Yeah, the next creative pillar we have is Consistency. You’ve seen this in some of the examples we’ve shown you already. But what this really gets at is, having consistent brand cues. Having consistent elements, like Max in VW ads, that draw through all your campaign, that you can rely on to tell viewers, “This is an ad from my brand.”

I think we should show you this example from Mr. Opportunity and then talk about it.

[Video shown, Honda ad with cartoon character touting clearance sale superimposed on real-life scene resembling political rally.]

Hirsch: So what’s great about Mr. Opportunity, every time anybody sees Mr. Opportunity in an ad they know that’s for Honda, and they know it’s a sales event. They get the brand and the message right away.

Another thing that they’re doing that works really well for TV viewers is, they’re evolving the concept over time. It’s not the same narrative year to year. This one obviously had a little election bent to it.

That consistency, but changing it up, is going to help your ad not get boring to the viewer. So it’s very important to do that, too.

And the last pillar here, this one’s really about Messaging. There are a lot of things to say about cars. There are a lot of messages to include about the product, about the pricing, and what we found with our TV panel is, they need single-minded messaging.

They’re watching a lot of ads on TV. Sometimes they’re not listening or watching the whole ad. You have to be single-minded in your focus, as much as possible.

Let’s show them this ad from Saturn, give them a sense of it.

[Video shown, “Total Confidence” ad about Saturn picking up payments for buyers who subsequently lose job.]

Hirsch: So there’s a lot of people with a similar message on-air, and what Saturn has done is found a way to get all these elements. They have a hook, really emotional way to connect with the viewer, and then the whole creative is about that one message, the Total Confidence message. And that’s breaking through really well.

Miller: Yeah, I heard that rumble… [re. comment from audience about Saturn’s questionable future.] We can’t be responsible for General Motors’ financial crisis. [Laughter.]

But this ad certainly helped them.

Ok, so we’re going to talk about the other side of the pillar now, the Media pillar. And if I asked all of you to name an industry that since 1949 had not changed the way it sold itself, what industry would you tell me?

[Misc. murmurs from audience.]

Network television. The TV industry has not changed until about five years ago in terms of the way, as a commodity, it has been sold. It was sold, of course, on how many eyeballs will have the opportunity to see this ad.

And how many did you reach? Nobody could tell ya. They could just tell you how the opportunity was there, and that was all about reach and all about CPM and that made advertisers feel warm and fuzzy about how efficient their buy was, right?

Well, about five years ago a whole bunch of studies, not ours, but a whole bunch of studies being done from the prior decade that said, “You know what? Even if I spent $1.99 on an ad”—and of course they’re hundreds of thousands—“even if I spent $1.99, if people didn’t remember it and didn’t respond to it, it wasn’t very effective. I just threw out my $1.99, didn’t I.”

So maybe we should have another currency in TV talking about how effective that ad was. How engaged the viewer was. And I’m only gonna give you one research statistic in the whole thing, I promise: There is a point-81 correlation or better between how engaged you are in watching a TV show and how much you remember that ad that ran in that TV show.

Point-81 correlation or better, that’s huge. So if you’re gonna pay attention to the show, you’re gonna remember the ad. That’s the theory. Now the ad has to do, of course, all the other things, but that can make a big difference.

So let’s see how this was applied. This [slide on screen] is called Program Engagement, measuring how engaged viewers are by each program on TV.

And here you have a choice. So let’s pretend for a minute, now, we’re going to be purchasing advertising time on behalf of our car company. And this is actually a real example: At the time, the price for “Chuck” on NBC, which had an 80 percent of its viewer, high-engagement show, and “Bone” at FOX had a 70 percent engagement factor. They were priced the same way. Which one would you buy?

If your goal was to increase your memorability, to make sure you broke through the clutter and the ad was remembered, what you would do is, you would buy the show with the higher level of engagement. In this case, you would get 44 percent rate of memorability.

So what happened five years ago is that networks started to have advertisers go to them, having people look at media not just for the sake of how many eyeballs potentially could be seeing, but where were the effective shows? Ok?

One year later, Toyota broke all records in network TV by getting the very first engagement guarantee, and it was on headlines in all the trade press. NBC actually came out and did that first one.

Now there are many, many car companies that are in that game and getting this.

But I want to have a little bit of fun here. So if I said to each of you, “Sixty Minutes.” Quality program. High recognition. Good reach for its time segment. Is that a program that you would put an ad in if your goal was to keep that viewer highly engaged with you? Would you buy “Sixty Minutes?”

No. Why not?

[Inaudible audience input.]

Miller: Well, it might be boring, it might not be. But I think what you’re all intuitively sensing is, it’s a program that when you tune it in it has three distinct sections. If you happen to be interested in one of those sections, terrific. You’ll stay with it. But odds are, you might not be interested in all of it.

That would not be a program [one would buy]. So thank you for staying with me and getting that.

This now is the entire giant trend going on in TV. It’s beginning to hit local markets, particularly with O and O ["owned and operated"] stations, and groups of television dealers that we work with, the dealer associations, essentially, as well as manufacturers are now having a bi-modal guarantee going on. So it’s very interesting, what’s starting to be talked about.

Ok, let’s move on to the next one. So if those of you who are very young, you might not remember this, but let’s talk about it a little bit: Flighting. So Flighting in the car business used to be the game where the ad agencies stood up and they had the dealer board there and they showed them a flow chart, where every little box was filled in, and that was the game. The game was, make the client feel warm and fuzzy by all these little boxes being filled in, right?

Unfortunately, that could have meant one spot a week.

Now, bring this up to present day times and there are still, unfortunately, some advertisers who think that that’s the game.

That’s silly. They’re wasting their money.

So what’s happening in Flighting is, you have to give viewers now an opportunity for repeated exposures, and the very best thing I could share with you is, if you’re going to be there, be as big as you can. Lump it together, get an impact strategy going.

If you have to stay off-air for a while, ok, but when you come back you’re going to make some impact and your dollars are going to work for you.

If you think that just one spot here and two spots there are gonna work, they simply don’t. So for example, when [Dodge] Ram launched, obviously Chrysler has significant issues and has been having significant issues for a long time, but they were wise enough to say, “We’re going to lump our money up, put this into four weeks,” and what happened was, they had more weight by three fold than any other truck manufacturer on the air at the time. So they really commanded the share of voice. So this is another thing that we’ve learned now, with all the clutter: Television’s still a great medium, but you have to know how to use it effectively.

Ok.

Hirsch: Let’s go to the next one: Program Audience Ad Content Synergy. This is another one that makes a lot of sense. If you have an ad that, like the Ford ad, “Focus Briana,” reality style ad, they put it in “American Idol,” reality style program, it works really well, there’s a synergy there.

What we see is, if you can build on that synergy and build on what the audience is already expecting, you’re going to have a more successful breakthrough of your own creative.

We have a really good example here from Toyota that’s kind of over the top, but another way you can do this is take it down and say, “Let’s have sports content in our ad and put that in our sports buy.” But let’s show you this example, it’s really fun.

[Video shown, in which RV is elevated to ridiculous height to give NASCAR fans a better view.]

Hirsch: I’m surprised nobody’s built that yet!

Program Integration; this one we also mentioned again with Ford, but a lot of automakers have really paved the way in terms of integration, and not only are you building awareness when you’re in the show and you’re part of the narrative, or maybe you’re a giveaway at the end of the show, you’re giving away your vehicle, that builds awareness. But then you can also can impact your standard ads. They air in that show, they also get a lift in performance. They get increasing brand recall.

And so we saw this really for Ford in “American Idol.” They have the mini movies. They feature the contestants interacting with the vehicle. Then they have the Fusion commercial coming right after that, and that really increases performance for the Fusion ad.

So that was it for 2008 and some of our main pillars, and what we’re seeing in 2009, these pillars are more important than ever.

And there are really two trends we kind of wanted to share with you that we’ve seen throughout these first four months of 2009.

And the first one is all about money. Ad spend is down. No surprise. It’s down about 26 percent for just the top automakers and just this first few months of the year, compared to last year.

So what does that mean? What we’re seeing is that there’s a lot of strategies trying to make the media plans and the ads more efficient. A few of these include Tire 1, product ads, and Tier 2, retail ads, are starting to blend. We’re seeing people try to do double duty with an ad and make it perform both ways.

That can be a very effective strategy. It definitely will save money, but the key is, you have to leverage very similar content or else viewers are going to get confused. They’re not going to remember seeing the ad.

Another thing we’re seeing is more messages packed into ads. A lot more ads are including a retail message at the end. So like a 25 seconds of ad content, five seconds of a retail message at the end.

This can also be a little dangerous, and so we’re wondering how this is going to play out, because ads already contain too many messages, particularly in automotive.

So as single-minded as you can be, that’s going to help that type of strategy break through.

The second big trend: I know everybody’s been hearing about them and talking about them; it’s the assurance-style messaging. There are many people doing this now. We have Hyundai, of course, paving the way. Ford, GM also launching campaigns. We showed you that really effective Saturn ad.

What we’re seeing is, these campaigns, the message is breaking through. Viewers get the assurance message, they understand it, they like it.

What we’re really worried about is confusion. So you have to be unique in the way you’re out there with this style of message, because there are so many brands there. Otherwise you’re going to get confused with the clutter.

So those are the key trends we’ve seen and…

Miller: And thank you very much for all your attention and it’s been an honor and a privilege to be here. I see some really wonderful, familiar faces and a lot of new ones and we’ve been really honored to be invited to be here and we would now welcome any questions from the floor.

QUESTIONS?

Charlie Vogelheim: I have a quick one. Thank you very much for not calling me on that Kia… I thought the similarity was that they both showed the engine, but I couldn’t say that out loud because Deb would get mad.

Real quick on the, you didn’t really talk about the DVRs and people recording, just bypassing the ads altogether. Can you… Yeah, TiVo’s the word I was looking for. Is there something about the watch rate and what’s happening with that?

Hirsch: Yeah, sure. We’ve measured DVR viewership and we react how people react to the ads, then, afterwards. We’ve definitely seen an increase. I think Nielsen most recently reported 30 percent of TV households are watching with a DVR. Very big, impactful thing. But not as impactful as you may think. So when you’re in a DVR environment, viewers are watching the ads, they’re remembering it about one third less than people not watching in the DVR environment.

So it’s not like they don’t remember it at all, they do remember it and actually pretty well, but the key is to break through even more and make sure your had has got that creative pop we talked about.

Vogelheim: Do you measure how many people with the recording devices even watch an ad at all?

Hirsch: Yes.

Vogelheim: And how much less?

Miller: It’s about one third less. And also you have to realize that TV right now is on your mobile phone, TV is in places you go now. So you have dinner and suddenly there’s a big screen and not just playing programming, they’re playing ads. And so what we really like to think about is, this is video. This is video. And, of course, the Internet. TV shows are now shown on the Internet. You can pull ‘em up at your own leisure.

So it’s when an advertiser makes a buy on TV, often now the guarantees, for example, with the networks will include an Internet broadcast, and that’s another way of them packaging that. So measuring effect of this really has to transcend all of those forms.

Zoran Segina: When you are with a DVR, somebody was mentioning creating an ad that would actually travel through the fast-forward, which people do repeatedly, do you have any information for something like that, where the ad would actually be seen irrespective of somebody going fast-forward through the ad?

I also wanted to add that I will tape Super Bowl and watch ads only.

Hirsch: Very nice! We haven’t studied those style of ads. Those are very new, so very preliminary, the style where the ad actually fills the pod, kind of stays on-screen. But what I can say is that ads that are already going to be memorable, you’re going to recognize them when you’re fast-forwarding, too. So we have seen data on that.

Ed Jenks: Have you done any studies to compare or to see if there’s any crossover of Internet social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, combined with the ads themselves in order to create additional awareness?

Hirsch: We do have a wing of Nielsen that measures buzz and things like that, so I think that ads have a life of their own and you can see a lot of activity online after an ad.

What we’ve measured at IAG is, how does TV and Internet, how do they add to effectiveness? We definitely see, if you’re on both mediums, you can get a lift in your performance.

Miller: So we’re in the process at Nielsen, you know, Nielsen is really this giant collection of many, many companies, the largest market research company in the world, now is comparing how each media form will interact. We don’t have all the data on all of them individually yet, but they’re in pockets somewhere in our big Nielsen one.

Jenks: But you don’t have any insights you can share at the moment, but you’re working on it.

Miller: Well, we can share the insight, as Sallie was suggesting, that when you have an ad on TV and you play that also on the Internet, right? You will get a greater lift in your memorability of that ad. So that we know is true.

When you have… BuzzMetrics is the division that Sallie was talking about that measures, literally, Toyota will come out with a new vehicle and what is the buzz on that? And they have all kinds of products, like threat, if there’s something negative, and they communicate with the PR department immediately of Toyota in that case and tell them what the buzz is, and they decide to deal with it. Twitter will be in that section too. So eventually we will be able to answer that by medium and then in combination.

Great question. Yes sir…

Lou Leto: I respect the relationships between the clients and the agency, and I just love to sit in those meetings where there truly is a lemming mentality where, “Well, they’re doing employee pricing, let’s do employee pricing plus or…plus-plus.” And we know what’s happened to all those employees! So you might not want to buy employee pricing ‘cause you’re going to lose your own job as a result of that.

Also, the same thing happens when they’re discounting, they’re giving us lower APRs. Perhaps next year the best commercial might be the one where the American President stood up and did a great testimonial to Chrysler products and their warranties, and what would be guaranteed for the future.

So I’m wondering if, among the other automobile manufacturers, is there a competition for his endorsement for another manufacturer.

Miller: [Amid laughter] I don’t have any idea what to say to that! I don’t think that I could speak for President Obama. But an interesting comment nonetheless.

Chuck Dapoz: Can you talk about the limitations of panels? What people say is not necessarily what they do, and if you have 2.5 million people on a panel and they know they know they’re going to be asked about commercials next day, they look at the TV different than people that aren’t on a panel. So there’s some bias in there. What are panels good for, what are the limitations?

Miller: I think that’s a great question and I’d like to answer that. Sort of both of us answer that, because you’ll get a very different perspective, you’ll get a far more technical answer from Sallie.

There are all different types of panels, absolutely right. When IAG was formulated, what we were trying to do was to create an environment that was as real-world as possible, because other panels, we didn’t feel, really had done that yet.

So by virtue of sitting in your own living room, or wherever you’re watching that program, and giving you 24 hours to voice your opinion about that program, seemed to be a far more realistic picture of it.

And the one thing, we did tremendous amount of R&D on the TV environment itself. Television is a phenomenon in the United States. For those of you—I know we have some international journalists here—TV reacts very differently in other cultures, other countries.

Here, no matter what your socio-economic background, no matter what your ethnic background, assuming English is your, is a language you’re comfortable with, everybody—everybody—has a passion about something on TV.

It could only be one program. It could be football. It could be “Desperate Housewives.” But somebody is gonna feel [ITALS] something [END ITALS] on TV. And that’s very unique.

So to try and measure what people are remembering and how they’re remembering it for a medium this massive we thought was a great basis for a company, and different way.

A lot of panels have very high compensation. We have a point system. So you go on rewardtv.com and you give your opinion, because here’s another phenomenon in the U.S.: everybody wants to express their opinion on something they saw on TV. Nobody knows really why. Why do we feel so strongly about that?

But they’re going to tell you whether they liked that “Sixty Minutes” segment, whether they thought Obama did a terrible job on his speech; they’re going to tell you something.

So we really didn’t have to incentivize people and we didn’t want to incentivize people, to eliminate just the bias that you were suggesting. It’s a very valid point.

So what we did is, we set up a reward point system, like your airline reward program, where if you went on you would earn points for the responses that you gave. And in about a month, if you were lucky, you might earn two movie tickets, and that would be it for all this time.

So what did we do? We deliberately set up a system where we would turn over that audience in about every three weeks. People just didn’t want to do it anymore. Right? Always then giving the advertiser a fresh look at how those commercials are, because we wanted to avoid professional panelists.

So you’re absolutely right to question panels. We don’t really have to build panels anymore. It’s the biggest panel inside Nielsen. We always thought the Nielsen panel would be the biggest, when we were negotiating with them. Turned out we’re bigger than any Nielsen panel.

So there is some validity in statistical, really sustainability as well in something that size, so…

Hirsch. Yeah, I mean I think I would just add that, in the beginning, when we started, we said, “Ok, we have to identify the bias in this panel. We have a panel, we have to identify the bias and minimize it as much as we can.”

And we did that in a lot of great ways. As Lois mentioned, we have that turnover and we also, when we’re comparing… Any of the results you see here, are all compared within the system one to another. So it’s all the same structure. And that also helps a lot.

[Inaudible followup question.]

Miller: Ah! That’s a great question, and we get asked that a lot, particularly by retailers in the car business. “Hey, if my ad’s so great, how come I’m not selling any cars?” Right? [Apparent assent from questioner.]

For any of you who have ever had anything to do with the advertising experience, I can put the most effective ad on TV possible, and what’s my job? My job is to communicate whatever message you have decided you want to send to the consumer.

So all I can ask is that it gives you some response and if you’re a dealer, you’re gonna hope that that response was, “I’m gonna go visit the dealership.”

Ok. So let’s pretend that Lois Miller goes to a dealership, and I go to a dealership and I wanted a green car and I thought I was getting $5000 cash back and I thought I was getting zero financing and I get there and they only have a red car and the salesman is very unpleasant and a chauvinist pig and… [laughter] and he only wants to give me $2000 off, right?

By the way, that’s not my experience, I just want to tell you that. [More laughter.] I have the world’s best dealer in the country, Lexus of Santa Monica, but… [Big laughs] I had to say that! It’s the truth, it’s the truth.

Anyway, but, I have also done enough field research in my earlier days to know that these things really do happen.

The point is, advertising communicates. It can’t sell a car. It can create interest, it can create passion, but it cannot sell a car, and that’s where the retailer really has to take over.

So there’s a million things that happen between the ad airing on TV and the person walking into the dealership.

So… That’s a great question.

Chuck Parker: Sallie and Lois, I know that your research and your whole focus is about TV. However, there is a suggestion in your stats and in general in the media that we are approaching rapidly an integrated model in which all aspects of media, including the Internet, are interfacing and working with TV. Are you seeing that kind of research and are you in the position to track this? Is this meaningful, is this happening, and how is it happening?

Miller: That’s another great question. We are not only seeing it happening, we are right in the middle of that. IAG was already in the model of television as well as Internet and now we’re taking that out to things like BuzzMetrics, so measuring all kinds of communications devices.

So yes, we’re right at the heart of an integrated model. We think that that’s terribly important for advertisers, not only on a national level but also on a regional level and on a local level. If you’re going to put your money into newspaper and outdoor and radio and TV, it doesn’t matter what the scale, it should be able to be measured across the board.

Sallie, do you want to comment any more on that?

Hirsch: No, I think that’s it.

Bill Baker: Can you tell me what impact the constant price advertising and the global news media environment that is filled with the GM going bankrupt, or might be going bankrupt, Chrysler going bankrupt; what impact is that having on brand value or brand equity in the auto industry?

Miller: I’m not sure I have an answer to that, because I’m not sure that we’ve seen the effect that it will have. I think what you might intuitively be concerned about, and I too am concerned, we are as a company, it used to be, and I think this is very relevant for all of you, it used to be that you had product ads and the manufacturer was responsible for those product ads and making sure that everyone knew there was a new Lexus, a new BMW, whatever.

And then you had the associations responsible for talking about the deal. Right? And then you had Tier 3, which was the individual dealer. What’s happened is, in Tier 1, the product ad, had a much higher recognition. People remembered those ads and got them and understood what the message was much more clearly than the dealer association ad, ‘cause that was the deal, a little more complicated.

So this past year, what we’ve seen is, these two have merged with the invention of this “Tier 1 and a half.” And so what’s happened is, the recognition for all of the messaging has dropped. It’s on parity now, but it hasn’t brought it up. It’s brought it down, contributing to much more confusion.

The second half of your question, I don’t know that we’ve seen yet the erosion of the brand equity because of this blending. You know, people sort of have forgotten what their job is in the business. I’m a manufacturer, what’s my job in communication vs. the dealer association vs. the dealer?

Hirsch: And I would add to that, I think what we do see in our data is that consumers respond to an emotional connection. Not just throwing a price up there, but you have to somehow connect it, to make it relevant to them emotionally. They’re not going to respond or remember it otherwise.

Miller: I mean, the Chrysler ad, $2.99 gas? $2.99 gas got the highest recognition we have ever seen for message recall.

Now why? Ok, prices were skyrocketing on gas. The company came out with an ad that said, “$2.99 gas.” It was relevant, it was timely, and you know what? It really did good things for Chrysler, ‘cause certainly nobody was talking about going to a Chrysler dealership at that time. But they saw a tremendous increase in traffic.

Now sales? Another issue. But traffic, yes. Yes.

Livinio Stuyck: You were talking about, before, but there’s some question that I was always hearing that’s coming from the dealer side, that people, the consumers, are not showing up at the dealers. You were mentioning that you have to have brand recall and remembering the ad that there is some other buzz in the news all the time about companies go bankrupt, GM is going bankrupt, and that is like influencing also consumers to get a move and go to the dealer just to even talk with the dealer about buying a new car. So it’s not about, I think, more about you were saying about the old studies about having a not so pleasant experience at the dealership. It’s just well before that. So that’s my impression, that this two different things, you know, forces that are going the opposite way. That’s how I see it.

Miller: Undoubtedly the impact of what we’re going through economically is challenging, to build dealer traffic. We do actually have a measurement on local broadcasting, to measure, did this ad make you want to visit this dealer within 30 days? We actually have a straight-out measurement of that, so we know what that’s doing. But my example about what happened at the dealership was simply to say there’s no way to correlate the ad that you put on TV and whether or not the dealer sold a car. You can’t make that connection. That was the point of that.

Vogelheim: There was an article about Hulu in the paper this week. Specifically about Hulu, can you make comments about that and how the ads were delivered?

Hirsch: Yeah, we’re studying that. I think Hulu has the flexibility to put an ad almost anywhere in the show. To put a few together. To put only one pre-roll, only one post-roll. So they’re playing around with a lot of different formats and I think they’re actually using our information and our effectiveness data to understand what’s going to drive effectiveness.

And their audiences are building, so once they get competitive in that way, they really have a unique product.

Bob Saber: What’s the story on celebrity endorsements and the future for that?

Hirsch: Well, I can tell you celebrity endorsements have mixed results. You know, you really have to find the perfect match. It’s not just a celebrity saying some lines, it’s going to be a celebrity really giving the viewer something, a reason to listen, connecting with them.

Howie Long has worked well recently for that.

Miller: We’ve found a lot of advertisers are skittish now, because so many celebrities sort of went south, who had been chosen and had some personal issues. [Chuckles from audience.] So they’re very skittish about that whole topic.

Alysha Webb: I might have missed this conversation, I’m sorry. You might have discussed this, but I stepped out.

You mentioned there are the dealer advisory boards and if they had their own ads, if the dealer ad councils had their own ads, it was confusing to consumers if the national brand also ran an ad.

Well, there’s companies such as Cobalt that one thing they do is, they make sure that all the dealership websites reflect any kind of national or perhaps regional message. Does that help, if you have that kind of coordination? Is it equally effective?

Hirsch: I think in an environment with less money you have to be much more consistent across. It’s one thing if you have the media dollars to support a unique approach. You have to be out there and have your impact, as Lois was saying earlier. But if you’re going to have something where you have less media dollars, be consistent across, and I think the Web is also a place for that.

Christian Bokich: I’m wondering if you had any insight on gender and how gender responses are to TV ads or specific technology. I guess a little bit of a background is that we always hear about the statement that, obviously, the woman in a family or the woman in a relationship makes a huge influence on the purchase of a vehicle, but what is kind of like the circle of the purchase processes you see and how the response comes? I know I’m opening a Pandora’s Box here by everybody’s reaction, but I was just curious a little bit about any insights.

Miller: No, I don’t think you really are. We measure ads. We slice and dice. With a panel that large, we can slice and dice the response to ads any way that you like. So we’ve seen ads that do polarize men and women. We see ads that, you know, it’s more product-driven than it is the creative approach. We’ve certainly seen in the ads that you thought were going to open Pandora’s Box, but the bottom line is, from a research standpoint we can tell that marketing department what is working. If that was the demo you wanted, did you hit it or did you not, and that’s what’s most relevant to them. So, yeah, we could do that and do do that.

Thank you so much. This is a wonderful audience!