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Council for Research Excellence Establishes Comprehensive Database for Study of Video-User Experience

New York, NY, June 15, 2011 – The Council for Research Excellence (CRE), a diverse group of senior research professionals from throughout the media and advertising industries dedicated to advancing the knowledge and practice of audience measurement methodology, announced today that it has compiled a substantial citation database of available research relating to the video consumer’s experience across multiple platforms and screens.

The database was produced as part of the initial phase of CRE’s Study of User Experience on Multiple Video Screens and Formats, known as the “UX” – for “user experience” – Study.  The database will archive citations of more than 150 industry and academic studies, many of which are provided in full.  The archive, along with the findings of the initial phase of the UX study, is available at the CRE website, http://www.researchexcellence.com/. 

The CRE is planning a series of discussions within various sectors of the audience-research industry to explore the implications of the collected findings.

This initial phase of the study, designed to gather and review significant research insightful to the video-user experience on various devices, was announced in February 2011 and undertaken on CRE’s behalf by a team led by BIA/Kelsey Chief Strategy Officer Rick Ducey with the assistance of Patricia Phalen, Associate Professor at the George Washington University School of Media & Public Affairs.  It opens the door to a broader CRE effort to delve deeply into the video-user experience to develop greater understanding of video consumers’ influences and motivations.  Following a further review of the material gathered as part of the initial phase, CRE members will formulate questions to be addressed and will issue RFPs for the next phase of the study. 

In this initial phase, the research team sought to address the following questions:

1. What drives the choice of screen for the consumer?
2. How does viewing vary with chosen screen?
3. What is an appropriate vocabulary and methodology for understanding viewing styles?
4. What is the context of use across various screens – is the use complementary, additive or zero-sum?
5. What methodologies are best to understand these uses?

Initial findings for each research question will help in guiding the next phase of study.  For example, the researchers found that screen choice is driven by both best screen available and best function available; the bigger screen is not necessarily the “best” screen; multi-screen use is clearly complementary rather than cannibalistic; and researching cross-platform video media requires multiple methodologies.

“The CRE’s Video Consumer Mapping (VCM) Study, the results of which were first announced in 2009, explored consumers’ video-use habits,” noted Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting, and chairman of the CRE’s Media Consumption & Engagement Committee.  “This just-completed research effort, and the resulting database, is a major step in helping the CRE undertake the next phase of study of video consumption – providing integrated studies of the user experience across screens.  Something we’ve learned from this initial phase is that we can forget conventional wisdom about multi-screen behavior; no one yet has definitive answers.”

“Our next step at CRE is to share these findings, and those of the major second phase of this project, with the entire research community to help advance the dialogue and understanding of video use,” added Greg Ross, Director, North American Media & Marketing, for Procter & Gamble, who serves on the CRE’s Media Consumption & Engagement Committee.

“As video content becomes increasingly available across TV, mobile and Internet platforms, it is clear that users are accessing more video overall,” Ducey said.  “They are seeking both familiar and new types of content and experiences on these new platforms. The ‘User Experience’ with linear, on-demand and interactive video is associated with different viewing styles and types of engagement. It is critical for both advertisers and media to understand these relationships to develop more effective campaigns and richer audience experiences.”

To date, the CRE has completed several major studies, including  the Video Consumer Mapping Study, conducted in 2008, involving in-person, computer-assisted observation of media consumption; a Set-Top Box Study, examining the state of set-top box-based audience research; a landmark Non-Response Bias Study, exploring the impact and correlates of non-response to Nielsen surveys; a study of Media-related Universe Estimates; and “data-mining” from the Video Consumer Mapping Study, revealing consumers’ habits immediately before, during and after TV commercials, and their media consumption habits immediately prior to shopping, among other topics.

About the Council for Research Excellence
The Council for Research Excellence (CRE) is an independent research group created (in 2005) and funded by The Nielsen Company.  CRE is dedicated to advancing the knowledge and practice of audience measurement methodology and is comprised of senior-level industry researchers representing advertisers, agencies, broadcast networks, cable, syndicators, local stations, and industry associations.

CRE members represent advertising agencies and media-buying firms including Bromley Communications, Carat, Deutsch, GroupM, Horizon Media, Magna, Riester, Starcom MediaVest and TargetCast tcm; media companies including CBS, Comcast, Cox, Discovery, Disney, Hearst Television, NBC Universal, News Corporation, Raycom Media, Scripps Networks, Time Warner, Univision and Viacom; advertisers including Kimberly-Clark, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever; industry organizations including the Media Rating Council, the Syndicated Network Television Association; and The Nielsen Company; and the investment bank Nomura Securities.
For more information about the Council for Research Excellence, please visit: http://www.researchexcellence.com/  

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