Saturday, June 26, 2010

More Buzz = Higher TV Ratings right? Not necessarily

So, buzz is a good thing, right?  Getting people to talk about your product is what all marketers want.  But the age old saying "All publicity is good publicity" may not necessarily ring true.  According to this Neilsen Study, the level of online buzz about a TV show does not necessarily mean people are going to actually watch it.  What they say is that measuring the number of mentions a brand gets is all fine and good, but that data alone will not fairly predict ratings - you have to take a look at exactly what is being said in each mention, and identify whether the comments are positive or negative, to see how they really feel about it.

What was interesting was I remember, before the Lost Series Finale, all anyone could talk about was that Advertisers were spending up to $1 Million for a 30 second ad-spot.  Well, according to the article, ratings did not live up to what everyone thought they would be.  That kind of sucks for advertisers who probably used all the buzz around the Finale, to measure the number of people they expected to watch their ads and, in turn, figure out what they were going to pay.

It's really funny that the finale with the most buzz was Lost, but the one with the most ratings was actually Dancing with the Stars.  So I guess people like to publicly talk about whatever is currently trendy and not what they really watch behind closed doors.

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