Rooting for the home team sounds like a simple proposition, but for marketers, leagues and media platforms, it’s a million-dollar question.
Still, it doesn’t need to be a gut decision, says Beatriz Ribeiro, senior vice president, client success of Mediaprobe. The company uses galvanic skin response to gauge the emotional engagement of viewers with media and advertising.
“We quantify what was once qualitative,” says Ribeiro. Most market research relies on survey data, diaries and interviews after the fact to measure emotion, but Mediaprobe has the advantage of collecting measurable information based on physiological reactions in real-time and in a real environment,” she says.
“The emotional engagement that we collect and that we measure, we believe is actually the tipping point between exposure and action, providing a quality metric for the viewer’s experience, but also things like brand performance,” says Ribeiro.
This is particularly important for sports, which are having a moment in the media and marketing environment. Platforms, including linear TV, streaming and social media, are diving into the segment, especially with live sports, as competition with scripted entertainment becomes more precarious. This fragmentation adds to the challenge to brands, leagues and media platforms trying to rationalize investments, says Ribeiro.
“Brands need to know, and need this transparency to actually measure and optimize where they’re spending the money, where they are positioning their brand, their ads, their sponsorship,” says Ribeiro. “We can tell them where they should be spending their money, where and when they should place their ad and optimize their campaigns and marketing plan.”
Sports are tribal, driven by emotion and loyalty, as most experts are quick to note. And sports watching is often a group activity, with attention fragmented between the action on the field and sharing it with fellow fans in person and on social and digital platforms at the same time. This co-viewing dynamic makes measurement a challenge but Mediaprobe metrics are designed to capture and decode those shared emotional moments
Building on this expertise, Mediaprobe is soft launching a new product, the Sports Emotional Tracker (SET), which will potentially track 300 telecasts across different platforms and leagues to gauge emotional engagement and reactions among the viewer panel. The panelists wear sensors that measure their physiological response as they are being exposed to content and capture their cognitive responses through a dial in the app. A powerful combination of what viewers feel, say and think.
“Counting Eyeballs” vs “Direct and Unfiltered”
Traditional data collection is passive, says Ribeiro. Many legacy metrics focus on the size of audiences, such as how many people are watching and how long they are watching – “counting literally the eyeballs,” she says. But most of the fan engagement in sports has to do with more than just the size of the audience, she says
Current measurements “only provide the surface view of how viewers and true fans actually behave,“ she says.
Mediaprobe goes beyond and also cross-matches the physiological data with data from dial and pre and post-action surveys that tracks intent and behavior, to get a better view of how the reaction was translated into action, the better to guide marketing efforts.
“Our emotional engagement metric actually provides a more in-depth analysis,” says Ribeiro. The results offer “a more unbiased and unfiltered view” of how the content lands with the audience, she explains.
As an example, Women’s sports is one area that has benefitted greatly from demonstrating their higher levels of engagement and emotion to improve their lot. Ribeiro notes not only have Mediaprobe’s numbers borne out that men do watch women’s sports, but “they are driving superior outcomes for brands.” For example, measurements during the recent WNBA All-Star Game showed ads were driving 3.2 times the engagement of the men’s NBA final.
“Sometimes, it’s even more beneficial than spending money on men’s sports,” she notes.
This method of data collection also has a speed advantage. Results are available in real time, with a turnaround of 24 hours, not months as in other methods. This allows marketers, leagues and media to react and seize fan moments more effectively. “Literally the day after, our clients know how their content resonated, the brand knows how their sponsorship actually performed,” she says.
The results can help broadcasters prove the power of their content and justify their ad rates, based on the engagement and emotion scores. Mediaprobe worked with NBCU during last summer’s Olympic Games to understand how viewers were reacting to the content and the brands featured in it, says Ribeiro. Measuring the “carryover effect” of emotion as the broadcast segues into advertising is important to the platform’s ad rates, she notes. Mediaprobe also collaborates with other companies in industry, including TelevisaUnivision, Fox, A&E and Westwood One.
Brands and their agencies can also use the data to steer their ad placement and sponsorship decisions. “We know sports is one of the most engaging contexts, but our metrics are able to quantify and to actually identify what are these peaks of emotions. What are truly the places where brands want to be at?” asks Ribeiro. “We know a goal, for example, is super impactful, but there are tons of moments throughout the broadcast that maybe brands don’t know about. So we help them identify these gray areas and optimize the placement.”
Meanwhile, the leagues can use the content to strengthen their arguments in rights negotiations. Mediaprobe also worked with Formula 1 in the UK and with LIV Golf league, to optimize their broadcast production elements.
“We help our partners and our clients optimize sponsorships, optimize pricing, content development, and marketing activation,” says Ribeiro. “We aim to measure and reveal the true emotional connection, driving smarter media investments, laying the groundwork for engagement as the next marketing currency.”
