World Cup

ITV approached Other lines of enquiry with a brief to study the power of World Cup football matches to engage viewers.

The power of media content to 'engage' audiences has become a central concern for both media owners, advertisers and communications planners. The challenge for researchers has been to work out exactly what audience engagement is and how to measure it.

Plan

Out first big challenge was this – how can you tell when a person is 'engaged' by a media experience?

Our second big challenge was of a more practical nature - people couldn't (or wouldn't!) predict where they planned to watch the big World Cup England matches, or who they'd be with. In fact, nobody was willing to be tied down by a research company and take part in a survey for any level of cash incentive.

To resolve this problem we worked with The School of Biology and Psychology at Newcastle University, one of Europe’s leading psychology and neuroscience departments. Together we devised a sophisticated series of research experiments, tracking surveys and depth interviews. This included:

• Physiological measurements of pulse rate and blood pressure during games
• A scientifically designed psychology experiment using interactive SMS surveys with 240 viewers during World Cup matches
• Filmed depth interviews with World Cup viewers
• An 18-wave online tracking study totalling 9000 respondents

Results

We established that levels of engagement are determined by the fortunes of the games and engagement will ebb and flow unpredictably throughout the course of a football match. However, we can be certain that the highest engagement measurements for any type of TV content measured to date occur at the beginning of a big home team game (e.g. England).

Our results do not show that high levels of engagement with a football match transfer directly to adverts within the ad break – a great match will not redeem a bad ad. Instead, we found that compelling content like World Cup football provides a powerful opportunity for advertisers to create their own compelling content that synergises with an audience's mood, mindset and sense of occasion.