Our hero lived to tell the tale, publish the book, sign out the movie rights, and kiss the heroine. A new day rose over mount Olympus.
At this very moment, amazon.com carries 185036 titles with the word SPIN, comparing with 66545 titles with the word DIPLOMACY and 72379 with REMORSE. What a great time for spinners this is, the good ones can write their own cheque and even the bad ones can find work, trying to get corrupt politicians out of the occasional mess.
NBC Universal, self-described on its website as "one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience", is facing one of the wickedest technologies ever: the DVR (digital video recorder, known in South Africa as PVR, or personal video recorder) is set to enable users to record their favourite shows digitally, allowing them to mask, or simply fast-forward through, those pesky advertising slot at a press of a button.
As 'one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies', NBC Universal's bread and butter (probably most of its lunchbox), come from advertising. TV adverts, especially those shown in primetime, are amazingly expensive, thus guaranteeing a hefty profit not only for the TV networks (such as NBC Universal) but also for the advertising agencies and the production houses. In a world where people can opt to ignore adverts, the entire food chain is facing a calamity.
Jo Holz, VP of news research for NBC Universal, is in charge of audience research and ratings analysis for all NBC News programs, as well as cable channels MSNBC and CNBC. You can imagine that Holz's bosses are very eager to make sure that she finds a way to prove that DVR will not impact negatively on TV adverts. Armed with what she terms 'neurological and biometric methods of research', Holtz wired 20 regular viewers of NBC's hit show 'Heroes', enabling the network, she claims, to 'measure heart rate, respiration, galvanic skin response and physical activities of each volunteer.'
Are you still with me? Twenty regular viewers plugged into this ubersophisticated equipment. Holtz probably sat on the other side of the one-way-mirror, and did her sums. The conclusion, quoted from the network's release, is that "people were actually highly engaged, evidenced by tracking eye movement and other physiological responses similar to those achieved during real-time commercial viewing." Holtz was of the opinion (surprise surprise!) that people were able to remember brands "pretty much to the same extent as they did during real time".
In short: according to Holtz, DVR SchMVR, people get the correct brand message even as they fast forward the advert. Yeah, right. Now that NBC Universal was able to allay its own fears, it remains to be seen if it'll be able to sell this spin to advertisers.
Source: Cablers Brainstorm Innovative Research Tactics, NBC U Tracks Viewer Responses During DVR Replays, By Christian Lewis - Multichannel News, 7/23/2007, http://multichannel.com/article/CA6462427.html
