(Photo taken with the iPhone 4 via the wonderful Instagram app.)

During and after the interview, her producer and cameraman wandered our offices and gathered atmospheric material on Simulmedians at work and the data resources we use to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of television advertising.

Here’s the finished product. Deborah Feyerick’s piece aired on 3/30 at 7AM, 11AM and again at 1PM.

TV advertisers have long yearned for perfect addressability, the delivery of one ad to one household.B That capability is coming.B Plenty of companies with lots of smart people are working on making it real.B The reality is that it is still years from achieving the scale advertisers need.

Webre not waiting for addressability.B The agencies and advertisers who work with us are getting audience targeting on television, today.

Webve been calling shift to an audience driven view of the TV advertising the 3^rd Wave of Television.B Webve been working on a blog post that details the evolution of TV.B Webll finish and post it once the press calms down a bit.

It was also a big day for the information visualization nerds in the office because The Wall Street Journal was kind enough to illustrate our difference with a shiny infographic. The graphic shows Simulmedia Genre Segments as an example of dividing viewers into interest groups.B (Bonus: They even used our favorite infographic shape: the exploding pie.)

Each of the companies mentioned in the article has gone to great lengths to implement privacy protections.B B In our case, we only use anonymous data.B None of the data we license can be related to individuals.B B This makes our privacy stance crystal clear.B We believe a big part of making television advertising better for both advertisers and consumers is that everyone understands this.B Our position is over and above the strong privacy laws and regulations that already govern the television and cable industry.

One of the biggest complaints of TV viewers today is the dailyB inundationB of irrelevant of ads. Another is the inability to know all of the shows that are on TV at any moment that you might enjoy.B Webre doing our part to solve both of these problems. B We hope the building media coverage will start to call out these benefits and why we are working on the problems that we are.

Our only hope was that our name would be spelled correctly.B By the end of the article, we think itbs clear that webre not satisfied with the status quo of television advertising.B Webre using the collective experience as innovators in Internet advertising over the last 20 years to get others to join us in building an industry around making television better.

My sense is that it won’t be that simple. I do think that we are on the verge of the next generation of television advertising products and a significant acceleration in TV ad spending. In fact, I believe that we could very well see TV ad spending in the U.S grow from its current $65-$70 billion annually to $100 billion by 2015 or 2016. Yes, that big. Half of that growth, I believe, will be data-driven.

However, technology and data alone won’t make TV advertising better. We are not facing a situation where if you build it, they will come. No. I believe that it will take some entirely new approaches, new business models and new companies to deliver that growth and to convert technical capabilities like set-top-box-data-driven addressability or push-button interactivity into real products that TV networks and operators can sell and marketers and their agencies can buy.

Just look at how the online ad market developed. Dynamic, cookie-based addressability was introduced on the Web in 1995. However, it wasn’t until 2003 or 2004 that we saw optimized performance marketing take off, with the scaling of services from companies like Advertising.com and 24/7 Real Media. Folks were selling ads on online search pages in the mid-’90s, but it wasn’t until GoTo.com/Overture pioneered a keyword-based, pay-per-click business model several years later — and Google improved on it — that paid search took off.

What might new TV approaches look like? I believe that, like the Web, performance-oriented sales models and inventory yield management will be key components of any success. Selling marketing results, rather than just better-targeted media, will remove risk for marketers and agencies and make it easier for them to test new products. Driving up revenue and profit yield for networks and operators — perhaps guaranteeing it, rather than just enabling them to sell more complex products — will make it easier for them to embrace new offerings.

An example? I spend most of my time these days thinking about how data-driven targeting can be applied to TV program promotion.B In July, I headed to the industry’s PromaxBDA conference in L.A., where I offered an example in that industry sector. I believe that we will soon see TV programmers and marketers able to buy ratings — or “ratings insurance” — for critical programs. Thus, rather than just buying off-air media time to promote new show launches, or for mid-season episodic show maintenance, television system operators will leverage their set-top-box data and predictive ad targeting technologies and “guarantee” ratings for shows.

Does selling “TV Ratings Insurance” sound crazy? I don’t know. It’s probably not much harder than selling and delivering key word buys in search. What do you think?

(This post originally ran on MediaPostbs Online Spin on June 17, 2010.)

In a small and growing company with ambitions like Simulmedia, everyone we hire will impact the trajectory of our business and have the opportunity to bring positive change to the television media ecosystem.

Today, webre seeking applicants for several important positions.

Director, Attention Operations – As the Director, Attention Operations, you would be working on every aspect of Simulmediabs media and client service areas. B We are looking for someone to recruit, train and lead a team of media and client service professionals. You may come from an agency background or perhaps pricing and planning at a media company.B You should have a strong background in media functions. You should be comfortable with all phases of Spot TV Advertising, from research, to planning and buying, to trafficking systems, through to reporting, reconciliation, and billing.

Director, Product Marketing – The Simulmedia a⁷ Platformb” enables us to transform massive volumes of set-top box and other data into predictive insight to the effectiveness of television program promotion.B As Director, Product Marketing, you would be responsible for the launch of products that put the value of our insight into the hands of our television network customers and system operator partners.B You should be an expert on the interests and motivations of television network marketers and programmers and how they make decisions.

Attention Analyst b Simulmedia brings data-driven decision making to the art of television program promotion.B As an Attention Analyst, you would be responsible for the research required by product management, data strategy, operations, and our clients. B Media or TV experience not necessary; you may have come from Wall Street, web analytics, or even straight out of college. The experience we value is your having handled multiple projects at once and making sure deadlines are met.

Webre also seeking a Software Developer Intern for this summer.B B Over the course of the internship, you would support our Attention Operations and Attention Science teams, querying set-top-box data to advance analysis and model development.

If youbre interested in any of these positions, have a look at the complete job description on our Careers page and send your resume with a cover letter and salary history to careers@simulmedia.com.

Simulmedia is an Equal Opportunity Employer.B We offer competitive salary, benefits, vacation, stock options and a stake in our companybs success.

As a fan of digital video recorder and on-demand technologies and an active manager of my Netflix queue, Ibve pondered the relative lack of attention that these alternate modes of television viewing garner.B Both Nielsenbs Three-Screen and the Video Consumer Mapping studies mark time-shifted and actively selected content viewing as a sliver of the attention that goes to traditional linear television.

What is it about the linear television viewing experience that is so compelling that people forego the increased control and time-efficiency afforded them by their DVRs and on-demand offerings?B In its near-future portrayal of viewersb willingness to pay the ultimate price for the perfect video entertainment, David Foster Wallacebs Infinite Jest contains insights to this question.

Published in 1996, Infinite Jest is set after the extinction of all broadcast television and the advertising it carried.B Televisions have been replaced by teleputers, or TPs, high-definition video displays with Internet connectivity and built-in read-only cartridge players.B Itbs as if Netflix has taken over the entertainment world.B Video content consumption is almost entirely on demand.B Linear TV programming b or, in the parlance of Infinite Jest, bspontaneous disseminationb – is marginalized, preferred only for major sporting events and lower-rent fitness shows.

Lurking in the background of the 1,000-page plus tome is a video of such potent entertainment value that its viewers, both accidental and active, are immediately enraptured and enslaved.B The viewers will literally choose death and dismemberment over turning away from the video.

Intrigued by the challenge posed by the virtual book club Infinite Summer, I picked up Infinite Jest as a summer reading project.B Though I had read it not long after its original publication, I wanted to review the text through a lens focused by my experience at Simulmedia and to experience the online community built around the book club.

In the passage below, Orin Incandenza, a tennis prodigy turned pro football punter, responds to a wheelchair-bound, Quebecois assassin posing as a survey-taker while another female assassin hides under his, Orinbs, hotel room bed covers.

On page 599, the fake survey-taker asks, in French-Canadian-accented English, what Orin misses.

Orinbs gaze now was up at the ceilingbs acoustic tile, the little blinking disk of the hallbs smoke detector, as if memories were always lighter than air.B The seated man stared blandly up at the throb of Orinbs internal jugular vein.B Orinbs face changed a little.B Behind him, under the blankets, the non-Swiss woman lay very calmly and patiently on her side, breathing silently into the portable O₂-mask w/ canister from the purse beside her, one hand in the purse on the Schmeisser GBF miniature machine pistol.

bI miss TV,b Orin said, looking back down.B He no longer smiled coolly.

bThe former television of commercial broadcast.b

bI do.b

bReason in several words or less, please, for the box after REASON,b displaying the board.

bOh, man.bB Orin looked back up and away at what seemed to be nothing, feeling at his jaw around the retromandibularbs much tinier and more vulnerable throb.B bSome of this may sound stupid.B I miss commercials that were louder than the programs.B I miss the phrases bOrder before midnight tonightb and bSave up to fifty percent and more.bB I miss being told things were filmed before a live studio audience.B I miss late-night anthems and shots of flags and fighter jets and leathery-faced Indian chiefs crying at litter.B I miss bSermonetteb and bEvensongb and test patterns and being told how many megahertz somethingbs transmitter was broadcasting at.bB He felt his face.B bI miss sneering at something I love.B How we used to love to gather in the checker-tiled kitchen in front of the old boxy cathode-ray Sony whose reception was sensitive to airplanes and sneer at the commercial vapidity of broadcast stuff.b

bVapid ditty,b pretending to notate.

bI miss stuff so low-denominator I could watch and know in advance what people were going to say.b

bEmotions of mastery and control and superiority.B And pleasure.b

bYou can say that again, boy.B I miss summer reruns.B I miss reruns hastily inserted to fill the intervals of writersb strikes, Actorsb Guild strikes.B I miss Jeannie, Samantha, Sam and Diane, Gilligan, Hawkeye, Hazel, Jed, all the syndicated airwave-haunters.B You know?B I miss seeing the same things over and over again.b

b&

The man tended to look up at him like people with legs look up at buildings and planes.B bYou can of course view entertainments again and again without surcease on TelEntertainment disks of storage and retrieval.b

Orinbs way of looking up as he remembered was nothing like the seated guybs way of looking up.B bBut not the same.B The choice, see.B It ruins it somehow.B With television you were subjected to repetition.B The familiarity was inflicted.B Different now.b

bInflicted.b

bI donbt think I exactly know,b Orin said, suddenly dimly stunned and sad inside.B The terrible sense as in dreams of something vital youbve forgotten to do.B The inclined headbs bald spot was freckled and tan.B bIs there a next item?b

In describing what he misses about TV, Orin describes exposure to and participation in a framework of which he feels he has a complete understanding.B He likes that his responses to blow-denominatorb programming are prescribed and predictable.B He states a preference for the familiar over the new.

When the fake survey-taker reminds Orin that he can access those familiar programs and commune with his bsyndicated airwave-hauntersb whenever he pleases through his entertainment subscription service, Orin remarks that the fact of his actively choosing the familiar disrupts his enjoyment of it.B Similar to his taking pleasure in the bad grammar and volume modulating tricks of direct response advertising, he would rather be bsubjected to repetitionb and uses the word binflictedb, connotative of pain and torture, to mark the source of his preference.

To understand why people prefer the linear feed over their DVRs and on-demand content, I think about those bemotions of mastery and control and superiorityb that broadcast TV enables in its viewers.

The changes raise the question of whether channel placement has an effect on ratings.B Do stations gain an advantage from having a lower channel number, or are channel choices so diverse and complicated to begin with that channel placement doesn’t matter?

Radio stations have long understood the value of being in the “middle of the dial,” but it is less clear whether such an effect also exists in television.B Our initial findings are ambiguous–channel location seems to matter in certain instances but not in others.

Several networks have negotiated for more favorable places in the line-up.B For example, Discovery and Discovery Kids are moving from the programming guidebs figurative continental shelf of the 100bs into adjacent spots in the shallow waters of the low 20bs.

Other networks are making room for the next cohort of high-bidders.B CNN is vacating its spot for FX at the broadcast-like channel 10 and moving down to channel 78.

For the majority of Time Warner Cable subscribers who donbt follow cable trade press, the line-up shuffle will come as a surprise.B Those unprepared viewers looking for Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network and plugging the familiar two 2bs into their remote controls are likely to experience a disruption to their lean-back experience upon finding Discovery Kids on their screens.

If the accidental viewer find herself ensnared in Discovery Kids programming and takes in a commercial pod or two, the network may count this disruption as a happy accident.B And if the accidental viewer falls fast for the Discovery Networksb brand and returns to its channels enough to be considered a loyal viewer, then the happy accident becomes part of the justification for working with the cable operator for a lower channel number.

The question is how many of these happy accidents can a network expect to gain with a lower channel number and to lose with a higher channel number.B Set top box data can help answer the question.

The figures below show how audiences with similar affinities for program genre tune in to the same program when the program appears in different places in the channel line-up.B Each figure identifies the Genre Segment analyzed, the network, the program, the date range, whether new or all episodes were considered and includes a table with the neighborhood head-end, the channel number, the average rating for the program at that channel number, and a box plot to illustrate the variability around the average rating.

For Bravobs The Fashion Show, the effect of the lower channel number on ratings is unambiguous and positive.B The Reality Watchers, the subset of all viewers who have demonstrated a proclivity for unscripted television, tune in at different rates depending on where Bravo appears in the channel line-up.B In Malibu, where Bravo appears at channel 42, new episodes of The Fashion Show score an average rating of 4.6 among the Reality Watchers.B In Riverside, where Bravo appears at channel 135, the same episodes receive an average rating of 1.0 among the same audience.

For USAbs longer running and critically acclaimed Psych, the effect of channel line-up placement is harder to detect.B The Remote Detectives, the subset of viewers with a demonstrated preference for crime dramas, tune in to new episodes of Psych at almost the same rate in Monterrey Park where USA is located at channel 8 and in Riverside where USA is located at channel 60.

Finally, for CNNbs Larry King, lower channel numbers have a positive effect on ratings, except for in Malibu with both the highest channel number at 70 and ratings among the highest.B Fake New Followers, the subset of viewers with an affinity sarcastic news programming that carries over to the real news, tune in to Larry King at higher rates in Monterey Park where CNN is located at channel 10 than in Riverside and Longbeach where CNN is located at channels 48 and 61, respectively.

Promax|BDA is an industry group representing marketing, promotion and design professionals in the entertainment industry.B Its conference is an opportunity for the creative designers and producers to celebrate their accomplishments and catch the eye of network marketers planning their campaigns for the Fall programming season.B For Simulmedia, the conference was a chance to appreciate the craft of program promotion and immerse ourselves in promotional marketing culture.

At a panel discussion on Day 3 of the conference, bPromotions in the Multi-Media Market – Where to Put Your Moneyb, Mary Ann Farrell, SVP Research at E-Poll Market Research, presented a study of television viewers, their viewing habits and their attitudes toward promotional marketing.B E-Poll based its study on analysis of a nationwide online survey of a representative sample of 1,644 individuals aged 13-54, fielded May 21-26, 2009.

The E-Poll study featured several findings relevant to Simulmediabs focus.

	Fewer than2 in 10 consumers are bvery interestedb in finding out about new programs.B This is evidence of televisionbs bdiscovery problemb.B Perceiving too many programming options and too little time to discover and sample them, many viewers report a disinclination to seek new programs.
	Viewers with digital video recorders are more interested in finding out about new programs than their non-DVR-using peers and have higher rates of promo recall.B As DVR penetration increases, promotional messaging becomes a better use for television advertising inventory.
	Television is the primary source of new program awareness.B 94% of respondents said on-air promotions created the best source of recall.B Television is the most impactful media channel for conveying new program information.
	The perception of promotional ads on TV is more favorable than on other media channels.B 40% of respondents said that a TV promotion had caught their attention.B 7% of respondents reported finding TV promotions annoying.B Compare that to the internetbs 20% attention catching rate and 20% annoying rate.

Taken together, these findings are a compelling endorsement of Simulmediabs goal to deliver television viewership through data-driven program promotion.

Disbelief and dismissal characterize many of the responses to our findings.B Citing their own and their peers’ television viewing habits, people assert the highly directed nature of their viewing and declare their loyalty to a curated selection of television programs.B With the exception of live sporting events, they engage their TiVo or cable company’s digital video recorder to record their favorite programs for time-shifted playback at their convenience.

We’re sure that people do do that.B We do that.B We’re also sure that most people watch a lot more television than just the programs to which they’re loyal.B We call this difference between all TV viewing and viewing favored programs the Loyalty Gap.

We can understand the reluctance to accept our findings on loyalty.B It’s expected and perhaps natural for our reports of low levels of loyalty to conflict with people’s view of the world.

We’re social creatures.B We need to connect with others.B Projecting our need to connect on media, we identify ourselves by the television programs we choose and seek others with similar preferences.B The challenge of identifying and connecting with others around the more solitary act of inattentive viewing keeps us from looking past our loyalty and recognizing the amount of time we spend channel surfing and sampling programs.

Data from the Video Consumer Mapping Study fits this model.B The study found that people tend to underreport the amount of television they watch.

Television viewing duration and reach is in the upper right of the graph.B From the graph, survey respondents reported viewing over 240 minutes of television daily but were observed watching around 330 minutes.

Around 90 minutes of daily television viewing are lost on our consciousness.B People watched television for those 90 minutes but have failed to include it in their estimation of the time spent watching.

With a gap of that magnitude, people’s reluctance to accept our observation of low loyalty makes more sense.B People are likely to recall viewing the programs to which they’re loyal but may tend to neglect additional time spent watching TV.

Another data point in the Video Consumer Mapping Study, one that’s affirmed by Nielsen’s Three Screen Report, conflicts with people’s reports of highly directed, DVR-intensive viewing.

The amount of time people spend watching DVR playback is dwarfed by live TV watching.B As a percentage of all TV watching, live and timeshifted, DVR playback is 5.4% in Nielsen’s study and 4.6% in the Video Consumer Mapping Study.B Put another way, according to Nielsen’s study, people watch nearly 19 times more live television than timeshifted television.

The imbalance of live to timeshifted television viewing is a stark contrast to reports of heavy DVR utilization and the implied higher degrees of program loyalty.

People are loyal to a selection of television programs, but the data indicates a Loyalty Gap.B Viewers allocate attention, sometimes without realizing it, to a lot more television programming than that to which they are loyal.

Channel surfing is essential to the television viewing experience, especially as the number of channels and the volume of programming on television explodes.B Following from the explosion of television content, viewers’ ability to discover new programs is impaired and their estimation of the opportunity costs of choosing a program is increased.

At Simulmedia, we think that certain viewers will spend less time surfing if they were better informed of program content and schedules.B We also think that, through segmenting viewers by their surfing habits, we might better identify the viewers that will surf less and tune in more after exposure to the right program promotions. B Scheduling promotions in spots that index highly for viewers likely to enter favorable surfing modes will encourage their substituting viewing time for surfing time and increase the ratings of the programs they choose.

To investigate surfing behavior further we tapped into data from Twitter, where dozens of people announce to the world that they are channel surfing every day.B Unlike traditional ratings or second-by-second set-top-box information, Twitter has rich qualitative information that reveals motivations behind viewers’ surfing.

A semantic analysis of the data revealed that the tweets could be clustered into 8 distinct channel surfing modes. Each of these modes represents a different state-of-mind, which in turn could correspond to receptivity to program promotion. The modes are listed below:

1. Anticipation - composed of people who tweeted about surfing as they waited for a program to start. For example, “channelB surfingB waiting until 3pm when ellen comes on!“.

2. Searching – composed of people who indicated that they were searching for something to watch. For example “ChannelB surfingB . looking for some good cable tv“.

3. Multi-tasking – composed of people who were doing other things besides surfing and twittering. For example “ChannelB surfingB and reading Roenick’s latest comments on how he thinks Babcock hates Cheli..“.

4. Split-attention - composed of people who distribute their attention between several programs at once. For example “ChannelB surfingB between Idol and Lakers“.

5. About to sleep - composed of people who are just biding time by channel surfing before they fall asleep. For example “channelB surfing, probably til I fall asleep.”.

6. Relaxing - composed of people who have indicated that they were in a relaxed state of mind and were channel surfing. For example “Plans fell through so chillaxing nB channelB surfing“.B

7. Bored & Awake - composed of insomniacs who are bored, and are surfing in the hope they fall asleep soon. For example “ChannelB surfingB because I can’t sleep…..”

8. Converts - composed of people who found something to watch while surfing. For example, “ChannelB surfingB and found last 15 mins of Penn State trouncing Stanford in the Championship game in women’s college#rugbyB on ESPNU“.

We’d expect viewers in different modes to respond differently to program promotion.B Of the eight surfing modes, Anticipation and Split-attention are likely the most difficult to sway with promotions.B Viewers in Anticipation mode surf to kill time before a scheduled program.B Viewers in the Split-attention mode are watching multiple channels at the same time.

On the other end of the discovery spectrum, we’d expect viewers in the Searching and Converting mode, roughly 30% of classified tweets, to be most likely to change their surfing time to watching time.B Directing promotions to viewers who are in Searching and Converting modes presents a untapped opportunity to increase ratings and also provide better media choices to these viewers.