Leffler Blog: March 2010 Archives

Local People Meters vs. Diaries

In the past, Nielsen diaries were sent to homes for people to fill out which programming they were watching and everything was based on the honor system. This worked best when homes just had one television and there were fewer networks and programs to watch. As families increased the number of televisions in the home, Nielsen had to increase the number of diaries they sent to selected families.

With the advent of digital video recorders (DVR), it became a growing issue for people to track their TV watching. More often than not, people would have to guess at which TV in the house they were watching and which programs they'd viewed. Only recently was there an option in the diary to note that a program was viewed on DVR, along with the specific date and time the program originally aired.

Needless to say, the system was flawed and a new method was necessary. Enter the Local People Meters or LPM's for short.

Marist Facebook Ad Campaign Success Story

As an institution, it is important to always keep an ear to the ground for what is the latest trend with students, fans, and the general audience. In this specific case, the Marist College Athletic Department needed a way to guarantee a sold-out crowd for their women's basketball "Pack the House" game. Some of our other college clients had already been using Facebook advertising as a way to gain attendance to some of the "lesser" games, so the idea of a week-long Facebook ad campaign was proposed. This was the first time Marist had used Facebook for advertising, however the campaign blitz was a complete victory. Here is the testimonial:

That's why they call it MASS MEDIA!

The Leffler Agency is now in its 27th year of business. The most puzzling task we still have is the explanation to folks who advertise that there is a need for mass communication in order to get a response. This now includes social media, which can spread like wildfire in a targeted sense to massive numbers of high-interest potential consumers.

Too many marketing representatives in the sports industry think that advertising on one seemingly high-interest website or on one targeted medium will rock the registers. The problem is that each website and each social media output is a media outlet. Potential spend customers spend far less time on any one media outlet than they used to because their options are so numerous.

We used to be able to fairly accurately predict ad consumption habits because of there were a finite number of outlets. Now with infinite outlets, we must match the most likely sites and social media opportunities in network fashion with the standard media, which is less consumed, BUT nevertheless still consumed. The end product is still a presentation of MASS MEDIA; however, and not a dusting of a few media products.

For sports marketing professionals to hit big results, you have to reach big numbers of people.