Creative Research and Emotional DNA. Q&A with Mike Bloxham

Mike Bloxham might be best known in research circles for his work at Ball State University where his ethnographic study set the pace on ascertaining consumer device usage and adoption. Now, as SVP National Television and Video for Frank N. Magid Associates, Bloxham is working on a range of studies that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative applications across all video delivery platform initiatives.

In this fascinating interview, Bloxham talks about his current work with EmotionalDNA™, his past work at Ball State, the impact of smart TV, how cord cutting is actually cord morphing, measuring cross platform, the future of advertising and what will be the dominating media trend in the next few years.

There are five videos in the interview that can be viewed at www.weislermedia.blogspot.com:

Subject                                                                 length (minutes)

Background and Magid                                       7:30

Ball State                                                             9:46

Emotional DNA                                                   8:25

Predictions and Cord Morphing                         6:33

TV, Cross Platform, Mobile                               7:55

Charlene Weisler interviews Mike Bloxham who talks about his background and his work at Magid in this 7:30 minute video:

Mike Bloxham talks to Charlene Weisler about his work on ethnography at Ball State in this 9:46 minute video:

CW: What is EmotionalDNA™?

MB:  It’s effectively a viewer-derived portrait of prime time. It is based upon how TV viewers describe TV shows and TV networks as opposed to the way we in the industry define them. So it creates a different kind of taxonomy, a different lexicon for the way in which shows are defined by those viewers and it enables us to compare shows on a very different basis. We see that shows that are most like each other in the eyes of viewers aren’t necessarily shows which, on the surface, appear to be like each other.  So two unscripted shows based in Alaska might be very, very different in terms of emotional tonalities as far as the viewers are concerned. It may be that one of them is much more like sports programming or highly intense dramas, for example. In fact, that is true of one Alaska based unscripted show.

CW: Are you working with any networks on Emotional DNA?

MB: We have been working with A+E looking at EmotionalDNA™ as a means of defining emotional tonality of both programs and ads and understanding how ad receptivity can be impacted by the extent to which emotional tonality either matches or mismatches to varying degrees. And with other factors like the extent to which somebody likes a show is also a factor in improving ad receptivity. Which I can tell you it certainly is, looking at our data.

Charlene Weisler interviews Magid SVP Mike Bloxham about Emotional DNA. What is it? View this 8:25 minute video:

What could the media landscape look like in 3 - 5 years? Charlene Weisler asked Mike Bloxham who shared his Predictions and the concept of Cord Morphing in this 6:33 minute video:

CW: Mike, how do you think the media landscape will look five years from now?

MB: I am going to answer that question the way I have been answering it for the last ten years, which is simply to say “more”. There is going to be more complexity, more fragmentation, more functionality.  You will see more media with greater degrees of functionality. Television may finally cease to be the least sophisticated and most primitive screen available to us, albeit the granddaddy of them all in terms of reach and frequency. So I would just say “more” in pretty much any dimension you can think of. We are going to have more engagement with more compelling content because compelling content is what is going to enable businesses to survive.

CW: And what about the future of advertising?

MB: I think we are going to get smarter advertisers because the one thing I think is possibly going to change very significantly is the way in which brands reach people. And I don’t think it is anything as simplistic as what we call native advertising (which I am not a great fan of) but I do think that advertisers are going to realize as we see more time shifted viewing of one sort or another whether it is SVOD or DVR or VOD, I think there is going to be an overhaul in how we think about reaching people. Live TV is not going away. Thirty second spots are not going away. I don’t have that much patience for those who say they have gone away. Or for those who say TV is dead. But I do think there is going to be more creativity and inventive thinking in how brands engage with consumers both directly through what we conventionally define as media and the media of everyday experience off air, off line and out in people’s lives.   

In this final video, Mike Bloxham talks to Charlene Weisler about TV, Cross platform and Mobile in this 7:55 minute video:

Research is the Industry’s One-Armed Paper Hanger

I have written many articles about changes in our industry. We talk about how change is impacting the core mechanics of how we do our jobs, upending our long cherished metrics and data sets and setting even the most complacent executive into shudders.  But in truth, there are some in our industry who believe we are in a comparative lull.

At the recent ARF Re:Think, Keith Weed, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Unilever quoted industry notable Shelly Palmer who said, “Change will never be as slow as it is today.” That might be true, but still to many of us, the rate of change today is unprecedented and at once uncomfortable, vexing, fascinating and exhilarating.

A big part of this change is due to the advancements and access-ability of Big Data which is the bailiwick of Research and Analytics Departments. But the data is coming fast, furious and silo’d. So how does Research keep up? I asked a range of researchers at the ARF about what their priority was in the next six months here are the videos and here their stories:


Charlene Weisler asked notable industry executives what their top priority will be in the next six months:

Charlene Weisler talked to a range of industry experts who outlined their current major projects:

Cross Platform

Many across the media spectrum – from suppliers to agencies to organizations to networks - cited cross platform measurement as a top priority. CIMM CEO Jane Clarke said, “What CIMM is going to focus on is what we have been focusing on over the past few years - finalizing our cross platform measurement service with comScore called Project Blueprint. It is measuring unduplicated reach across television, radio, smartphones, tablets and computers across three media, video, audio and text.” Joan Fitzgerald, SVP Television and Cross-Media Services comScore, concurred, “We are continuing to concentrate on making cross media measurement a reality in the marketplace today.”

Tom Xenos, Vice President, Research, MediaVest said, “One of the biggest things coming up is to better understand cross media measurement - How to get the data, how to understand duplication, how to know what is driving what medium to what platform and having it all come together.” Tom Ziangas, SVP Research for AMC Networks added that he is committed to “coordinating our Big Data efforts to report and understand Video Cross-platform viewing behaviors.”

Targeting

But the media world is not solely focused on cross platform. For Leslie Wood, Nielsen, it is “Targeting. Everything we learned about targeting came from mass media where if you got it wrong you still reached a lot of people. But now that we can precision target, it really matters. What can we look at in our data that gives you the insights you need to make good decisions.”

Mobile

Mobile is the 600 pound gorilla in the measurement room.  According to Josh Chasin, CRO comScore, “What we are going to be working on is holistic measurement solutions that bring TV and digital measurement together and I think it will be around the nexus of mobile measurement.” Graeme Hutton is focused on mobile and its intrinsic synergies with television. He said, “If I had to do one thing over the next six months it would be to look at the interaction between television and mobile. Mobile and TV are known to work strongly together. But I want to know why. Understanding the ‘why’ is very important. The principal way to do that is through neuroscience.”

Data Integration Platforms

Harnessing Big Data is a big priority for many. For example, Bruce Goerlich, CRO Rentrak, is concentrating on data integration. He said, “We are just about to release the Rentrak Analytic Platform which will have respondent level data in it. It will be 500,000 homes in the beginning going up to 2 million. There will be many types of analyses that you can do on this huge data set providing stability, granularity and insights.”

OTT

For Mike Bloxham, SVP Magid, the priority is “the over the top and SVOD marketplace which has the capacity to be very disruptive and has ramifications across the business. If we see a continuation of what we have seen in the past 18 months in terms of viewing figures on broadcast and cable, advertisers are starting to think about how that will impact the way in which they use TV to reach mass audience.” 

Bringing the Next Generation Up to Speed

Change impacts not only those of us in the industry but also those who one day may join the industry. CRE facilitator and NYU Professor Richard Zackon is currently focusing on how to keep his summer audience measurement class at NYU up to date. He explains, “Every year about this time I begin to prepare for my class and every year I have to throw away about 5 or 10% of the material because it is out dated. This year I am going to have to throw out about 30% of my material. I have a lot of catch up work in basically every fundamental topic.”

Can we as a group of researchers manage to keep pace? I am hopeful. There are enough of us taking on a range of different challenges to assure that there will be some progress.

This article first appeared on www.Mediapost.com.