Nearly 200 industry colleagues and guests joined the CRE in person or by phone for the August 6 presentation of findings from two ethnographies conducted with research associate GfK.

The CRE released findings from the recently completed acceleration ethnography—designed to help determine consumers' likely future video-device purchases—and interim findings from the ongoing two-year longitudinal ethnography.

In the acceleration study, Internet-connectable smart TVs were selected for purchase by the majority of the 50 Chicago-area households participating. Smart TVs were followed by TV-set-connectable over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices (such as a Roku box or Google Chromecast device), which were typically purchased alongside other devices such as smart TVs. Tablets were purchased by a minority of the households.

Driving video-device purchase and usage decisions, participants reported, were content and the ability to stream it—especially on large screens: When TV sets with OTT access were introduced into a household, they became the most-used device for video. The TV set, whether smart or connected to streaming equipment, remained the dominant video-viewing device.

The longitudinal study, involving a national selection of 100 households, will continue into 2015, though the CRE has offered these initial findings, among others:

• Friends and young family members often act as influencers and agents of change in purchasing decisions and content consumption;
• consumers have moved from a single-source, single-device "mental model" to a multi source, multi-device model;
• a family is likely to watch together on a TV set on weeknights and then watch on laptops in their own rooms between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.; and
• typically, the father of the household plays the role of "manager" of the remote.

All households for both studies were given an innovative personal smart device, serving as a "participant toolkit"; this device included a camera and study-specific apps to enable self-reporting.

Digital Research Committee chair Bryon Schafer, who is Senior Vice President, Warner Bros. Media Research & Insights, will discuss the studies at industry gatherings including next month's The Market Research Event (TMRE) and the February 2015 Media Insights & Engagement conference.

The Digital Research Committee also has received Council approval for a follow-up qualitative study, to commence this fall, combining the households participating in the acceleration and longitudinal studies. Further details will be provided in subsequent newsletters.

In the meantime, a slide presentation of the qualitative findings announced on August 6 can be found here.

The CRE will host an October 23 event (originally contemplated for September but rescheduled) for Nielsen clients at which it will roll out its Big Data Primer and host speakers for a discussion of the latest views on the expanding relationship between data science and audience research. Clients should keep an eye out for their invitation early next month.

In the meantime, Stacey Schulman, Executive Vice President, Strategy, Analytics and Research, Katz Media Group, who chairs the CRE's Big Data Committee, is holding open her previously issued call for any and all Big Data case studies that Nielsen clients would like to submit for consideration.

Colleagues can contact Stacey via info@researchexcellence.com.

The CRE's Local Measurement Committee has issued a request for proposal to a number of major universities inviting institutions to request CRE funding for a postgraduate candidate to dedicate one year to improving the state of audience research at the local market level.

The goal of this initiative is to identify methodologies and technologies that could be employed to improve the current local media measurement system or to create a new system altogether, with an emphasis on creating stable estimates that can be used to predict audience delivery more accurately.

Additionally, the Committee has authorized a machine-learning study to test the capacity to predict local ratings for a market using ratings data from outside that market. The Committee will share more details at the October Big Data event for Nielsen clients.

The CRE's project to develop a white paper on cross-platform metrics, overseen by the Media Consumption & Engagement (MC&E;) Committee, marks further progress toward a planned year-end completion of the CRE's draft "Research Agenda for the Alignment of Cross-Platform Media Measurement." The series of field interviews with 50 leading media, advertising, and research executives and experts, conducted by Horowitz Associates and Betsy Frank Insights, will be concluded by early October.

Research associate Sequent Partners has completed the literature search portion and is well underway on conducting interviews for the follow-up study into marketing mix modeling. The project was launched this summer by the CRE's ROI Committee, chaired by David Poltrack. The project advances toward a fourth-quarter white paper.

The CRE's 2013 and 2014 "Talking Social TV" and "Talking Social TV 2" studies, conducted with research associate Keller Fay Group and fielded by Nielsen Life360, continue to garner positive industry reaction, reports Beth Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Market Resources and Advertising Sales Research, Discovery Communications, and chair of the CRE's Social Media Committee.

The academic review of the findings of the most recent study, "Talking Social TV 2," is proceeding toward fall completion and promises to offer further insights to the effectiveness of mobile journaling of media habits and behavior.

Stacey, Howard and Susie were CRE members when with previous employers.

At the CRE's quarterly meeting in March, the Council welcomed as a member John McMorrow, Senior Vice President, Programming & Research, at Cox Television's HRP subsidiary.

Longtime CRE member Jack Wakshlag stepped down at the end of March from his position as Chief Research Officer at Turner Broadcasting. During his 12-year term in that role, he has been credited with innovations such as establishing Turner as the first TV organization to begin coding its programming to measure the impact of over-the-top video consumption on commercial viewing; digital ad load testing that persuaded Turner to place content online with full ad loads; CNN All Screen; Advanced Media Targeting; a highly regarded promo testing data base; and successful program/movie estimating processes, among other achievements. We know readers join us in congratulating Jack on this recently concluded phase of his distinguished career and in wishing him the best on his next endeavors.

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: