The CRE's "Research Quality in an Age of Big Data" event drew a full house of Nielsen clients and guest speakers to New York's Time & Life Building on February 11.

Reg Baker of Michigan State Univ., who co-chairs the Task Force on Non-Probability Sampling for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and co-authored a recent AAPOR paper on the topic, addressed developments "From Online Panels to Big Data"; Guruduth Banaver, Vice President of Cognitive Computing at IBM, and a member of that company's famed Watson team, related "Cognitive Computing and Business Intelligence"; Vasant Dhar, Director of the Center for Business Analytics at NYU's Stern School, addressed "Data Science and Prediction," a topic on which he was recently published in the prominent computing journal Communications of the ACM; Nielsen executives Pete Doe, Senior Vice President, Data Integration, and Paul Donato, Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer, spoke respectively about "Big Data and Media Research" and "Nielsen's Vision for Big Data."

A common theme noted by attendees using the event's Twitter feed (#CREbigdata) was bridging the disciplines of data science and marketing research.

Speakers then joined for a panel discussion with CRE member George Ivie, CEO of the Media Rating Council (MRC). The panel was co-moderated by CRE Facilitator Richard Zackon and Stacey Schulman, Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer for the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) and chair of the CRE's Big Data Committee. Stacey wrapped up the day with the announcement that the CRE would be developing a Big Data "primer" with assistance from Gerard Broussard of Pre-Meditated Media.

Slide presentations from the event will be posted to the Big Data Committee page of the CRE site.

Beth Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Market Resources and Advertising Sales Research, Discovery Communications, and chair of the CRE's Social Media Committee, and research partner Ed Keller of Keller Fay Group, are offering a 2-minute video preview of their March 24 presentation "Talking Social TV 2" at the ARF Re:Think conference.

The CRE's previously announced ethnographic studies -- to understand the impact of Internet technology and video platform proliferation on video viewing practices – are proceeding well, with an initial major step already completed.

The CRE retained GfK for the studies, which are designed to help researchers understand the impact of increased video availability across a growing number of devices and how people think about and consume video.

The studies encompass a two-year ethnography and a supplemental "acceleration" study to examine potential future consumer behavior. The GfK research team will seek to uncover consumer decision-making about rapidly evolving technologies by accelerating adoption of the newest devices.

Researchers already have visited each of some 150 participating households at least once. In many of these homes, researchers have been using small "fisheye"-lens cameras to record behavior, later tagging interesting video footage. Participants also are being provided a video-journal "toolkit" including software enabling them to record their viewing habits.

The studies are being overseen by the CRE's Digital and Media Consumption & Engagement committees.

"As the Acceleration Study moved past the purchase phase, we learned that the most popular products were Smart TVs and streaming devices," said Laura Cowan, Research Director of LIN Media, who chairs the MC&E; Committee. "We've been continuing on into the observation phase, and it will be interesting to discover how the use of these devices is incorporated into the households' lives."

"This is a very large initiative and we are on schedule," added Bryon Schafer, Senior Vice President, Media Research & Insights at Warner Bros. Television Group, who chairs the CRE's Digital Committee. "Our panel of homes has been fully recruited and enrolled in the program, and fieldworkers have begun immersive visits in all markets we are researching. While early, what we have observed is compelling and we believe it will be helpful in progressing audience measurement methodology for Nielsen."

Updates will be provided in future newsletters as developments warrant.

CRE members are scheduled to meet on March 6 with the Nielsen Audio Advisory Council to discuss participation by the radio industry within the CRE. Updates will be provided in future newsletter editions as developments unfold.

The CRE's Social Media Committee is now out of the field with the follow-up to its 2013 "Talking Social TV" study. The findings of its first study were presented at a number of events during spring and summer 2013 and can be found on the CRE website. For this latest study, researchers collected data for three weeks, compared to a one-week period for the prior study. The CRE expects to announce findings of the new study in the first quarter.

The CRE's Insights to Practice Committee is scheduled to meet on March 13 to discuss findings of a number of recently completed CRE studies.

On the agenda are the Digital Committee's study of Cross-Platform Neurometrics and its white paper on Viewable Video Impressions; the Local Measurement Committee's Diary Market Ratings Analysis; and the Sample Quality Committee's "Response Bias Revisited" study.

At its December 2013 meeting, the Insights to Practice Committee reviewed the findings of the CRE's 2013 studies "Talking Social TV," on the relationship of social-media use to TV viewing, and "TV Untethered," on mobile viewing.

Insights to Practice, chaired by Nancy Gallagher, Senior Vice President, News, Sports and Affiliate Research at NBC Universal, works with Nielsen to inform its research practices, products and services with the practical learnings from the CRE's various studies. The forthcoming meeting will be part of the CRE's ongoing communication with Nielsen after research is completed.

The CRE has begun a committee for the study of the effects of commercial pod length. The committee, chaired by Hadassa Gerber, Director of Research for the Syndicated Network Television Association (SNTA), expects to begin its inaugural research effort in 2014.

We're pleased to welcome back Judy Vogel, Vice President of Research at Gannett Company, Inc.; Michael Nathanson, Senior Research Analyst at MoffettNathanson, LLC; and Bryon Schafer, Senior Vice President of Research at Warner Bros. Television. All three were prior CRE members while with other companies, and were re-admitted at the CRE's December quarterly meeting.

The Steering Committee of the CRE voted to approve the establishment of a $30,000 scholarship in the name of Susan Whiting, at her alma mater Denison University. Susan, who will be retiring from her position as vice chair at Nielsen at year-end, was instrumental in the creation of the CRE in 2005.

The CRE welcomes its newest members: