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Posted on April 29th, 2009 by Conor Finnegan
In our mission to provide better media choices, Simulmedia is working to understand not only what people watch, but the when, the where, the how, and the why too.
Sure, we have a lot of data, and we are good at slicing, dicing, and analyzing it many different ways, but data alone does not a company make. We believe that, in order to know your audience, you must also be your audience. If none of us watched the types of television shows or movies that we would help promote, we couldn’t relate to the audiences we are looking to understand. We would miss the connections that people have with television shows and movies.
To illustrate my point, I’ll share one of my connections.
When I was six years old, my grandfather passed away. I remember being at the cemetery hiding underneath my mother’s jacket while bagpipes played “Amazing Grace”. I was crying my eyes out.
As time passed, I moved on and didn’t really think about that day too much. That was, until I saw “Tommy Boy.”
Yep. “Tommy Boy” – the 1995 comedy with Chris Farley and David Spade.
Why “Tommy Boy”? In the movie, Tommy’s father passes away and after the funeral, Tommy walks through the cemetery while “Amazing Grace” plays on the bagpipes. When I first saw the scene, I realized I was crying but not because Tommy lost his father. It was sad of course, but I had seen funerals in movies and television shows many times and not a drop. I have also heard “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes and nothing there either. It was the combination of this scene with the song that, to this day, causes me to cry. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
So now what? What do we do with this information? Is there something there? Do people have connections to movies and shows that might help explain what they’ll watch in the future? The answer is “I don’t know”, but, because we recognize the possibility that people have strong affinities for programs based on surprising and counterintuitive combinations of factors, we are thinking about this type of thing.
Please feel free to share your comments or your connections that you might have.
The idea that programs are viewed by a demographic is so only because the currency of media, Neilsen’s people meter, has no ability to add psychographics to the measurement. The fact that a large percentage of A18-34 viewers are watching Ameirican Idol is convenient, but misses the core of who the viewer is.
The concept of passion groups was put out several years back. Part of what defines a passion group is shared interests. It is entirely possible that a woman 45 years old has the same interests as a 19 year old male, i.e. rock climbing, $5k spent on vacations annually, and likes Kraft Lunchables. These charactor traits, or passions point toward that kind of person being a Dangerous Catch viewer.
Finding a convenient, desktop planning tool that allows buyers to take the reverse of that, i.e. Dangerous Catch viewers like xx is where the rubber should meet the road and that is the first real step towards understanding “community” within the legacy world of TV viewing.
meant Deadliest Catch