Indiantelevision.com Team

(22 July 2006 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) has reached an agreement with NBC whereby NBC will guarantee a specific level of viewer engagement for its television programs.

Unlike traditional audience-size metrics, viewer engagement measures audience recall of television program elements. Studies show a strong correlation between recall of show details to viewers' retention of the accompanying advertising components. Thus, gauging the level of viewer attentiveness to television programs helps Toyota understand the value it receives from television advertising.

"Toyota places a premium on working with media outlets that are committed to accountability. Beyond audience size, we want the networks to focus on attention-grabbing, highly-engrossing shows that keep audiences tuned in," said TMS corporate manager marketing communications Kim McCullough.

"NBC understands the need to demonstrate commercial effectiveness, and we have aggressively created innovative solutions to help our clients achieve their marketing objectives and prove that our product works. We know our programs will attract and engage the quality audience that Toyota is seeking, and we look forward to working with them to provide further insight beyond standard audience ratings," said NBC Universal executive vice president sales and marketing Marianne Gambelli.

To gauge how accurately show details are remembered, an audience panel is surveyed. The guarantee will be tracked by using television engagement scores supplied by IAG Research.