Still in the hunt
Editor’s note: Jon Last is president of Sports and Leisure Research Group, White Plains, N.Y. Christopher Whitely is director, research at Comcast Networks, New York.
In 2009, Comcast’s national sports cable network faced a challenge. It had rebranded and changed its name from Outdoor Life Network (OLN) to Versus in September 2006 to better communicate the network’s core focus around competition, rather than just the outdoors. Yet it continued showing large blocks of outdoor content, which were housed under the Versus Country umbrella. While the perception was that Versus was moving away from its outdoor programming offerings, the number of hunting and fishing programming hours on Versus actually increased 6 percent from 2007 to 2008.
However, endemic hunting/fishing advertisers began to perceive Versus Country as being “less pure” than competitors who maintained a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week schedule of outdoor programming. An examination a straight trending crosstab of syndicated data from 2006 to 2009 suggested that Versus viewers’ participation in outdoor activities was going down. (There was not a question in the syndicated studies asking respondents directly if they viewed Versus’ fishing and hunting programming.) At the same time, viewers of the competing Outdoor Channel did not display any decreases in hunting or fishing participation over the same time period.
This was counterintuitive and gave rise to a series of questions. Were Versus viewers actually participating in outdoor activities less or was the decrease a function of the network’s rebranding? That is, since the network was previously known as Outdoor Life, was the broader Versus brand diluting the true scope of outdoor programming on Versus?
There was no indication that viewers were becoming less engaged with the programming after the rebranding, as the audience to Versus Country’s programs continued to grow. Over the 2006 to 2009 period, the Versus Country block saw an 11 percent increase in its average household audience and 26 percent growth in its key primetime programming block, according to Nielsen Media Research.
It is important for endemic advertisers to reach an audience that is passionate about and likely to participate frequently in the sport or sports that are the focus of the media outlet. By early 2009, with the sales and marketing teams facing scrutiny from advertisers who questioned the Versus Country audience’s commitment to field sports, Comcast Networks sought to address these concerns through a custom research approach that would enable network executives and advertisers to better understand this audience and demonstrate the network’s commitment to the vertical category.
The core question we sought to answer was the true level of Versus’ audience participation in the endemic categories of hunting and fishing. Beyond that was a desire to provide additional details on the category-specific behaviors, attitudes and preferences of the field sports market. Proprietary research conducted by Comcast Networks and Sports and Leisure Research Group in 2009 was designed to provide an insight-driven platform to address these issues.
Unstable data
One of the great paradoxes of media research within narrow vertical niches like sports is that huge advertising decisions are often made on relatively unstable data. Having sat in the seats of media researcher and marketer, independent researcher and advertising client, the authors have seen a constant battle between the often elusive search for valid and projectable syndicated currency from which to make cross-media evaluations and management’s desire to simplify conclusions about audience fit through succinct measurement metrics that put the advertiser’s options on a level playing field. This situation is particularly acute in the sports media.
One of the challenges that today’s sports media marketplace presents when attempting to tie together audience viewing profiles, advertising receptivity and purchasing behavior for smaller/niche sports is the multitude of research sources available. Each has its own limitations. The syndicated sources are constrained by issues that include recency, depth and questions regarding both sample appropriateness and survey question design. At the same time, custom research efforts are inhibited by scope, repeatability and cost issues, which have become more acute as research budgets have been compromised during the recent recession. Both potential solutions are also limited by information availability. Particularly in vertical niches like sports, there is often a limited amount of stable and projectable data, a lack of universal measurement across the category and across media, and varying levels of acceptance and research utilization within the respective endemic marketplaces.
In past work experience, one of the authors has observed frustration when syndicated currency failed to deliver a plausible sense of differentiation between various vertical media in the golf space. For example, from both a media seller and buyer’s perspective, it was often problematic when syndicated data depicted vertical golf media audiences at virtual parity, despite the fact that the most universally accepted syndicated data source revealed that literally half of the aggregate audiences of the leading vertical golf media did not even play golf. How then could reasonable cross-media evaluations be made, when the currency data cast doubts on audience differentiation across media? How could media planners objectively utilize currency that raised such fundamental questions of accuracy? And how could media sellers confidently and rationally assert the value of their audiences when the very foundations that defined those audiences were in question?
These were some of the issues before us as we began working on the Versus project.
Identify the desired utility
Before embarking upon our specific methodological framework for Versus, the Sports and Leisure Research and Comcast project teams sought to identify the desired utility and application of the research. It was clear that a proprietary study would need to broadly define the Versus Country audience and the overall field sports enthusiast population.
We sought to identify key drivers of brand preference and satisfaction on both an aggregate and comparative basis. We built brand-blind question constructs that evaluated awareness and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of specific programming content across the competitive set. Simultaneously we sought a more holistic understanding of the role of field sports within the overall lifestyles of the audience. Inquiries focused on spending and behavioral patterns within the category and across horizontal categories.
By inquiring more comprehensively into other aspects of the audience’s lifestyle, attitudes and behavior outside of field sports, the research could also open doors toward non-endemic advertising opportunities. The inclusion of inquiries into non-endemic categories like automotive, financial services and travel would allow advertisers in those spaces to see the value of an audience that was demographically and attitudinally aligned with their target market criteria.
By becoming an expert in both the content and category-specific realities of the outdoorsman across his life, Versus Country would now be able to position itself not just against its media rivals but also assert itself as a knowledgeable point of entry for those advertisers seeking to connect with the Versus audience through their passion for field sports.
There would also need to be a more robust approach toward uncovering the target’s levels of engagement within the field sports category. Insights would need to be derived that could articulate the key drivers of satisfaction, both within the sport and within the media that cover it. Linkages would need to be drawn between these drivers and the ability of various media to deliver on them. Individual programming content would need to be analyzed and dissected across the competitive set. The resonance of specific on-air personalities and experts and the ability of the outdoor audience to properly associate them with defined brand essence statements for each media could further enable Versus to more richly assess its programming environment.
Build a sampling plan
With the objectives and desired study utility clearly defined, the next challenge was to carefully build a sampling plan. Sports and Leisure Research Group tapped into a sampling universe of sports enthusiasts and participants culled from multiple best-of-breed online panel sources. With the firm’s principals actively engaged in industry efforts to mitigate respondent quality issues, great care was exercised in not only selecting sample sources that met respondent quality criteria but also in building multiple up-front and topic-blind levels of screening questions into the survey instrument. The screening questions measured participation and commitment levels to a variety of sports activities (inclusive of field sports) before delving into more specific inquiries on vertical media usage within the category.
Careful quota design and A/B/C version splits were deployed to maximize the topics to be explored in depth, without sacrificing overall projectability of the findings. Similarly, with the planned objective to leverage the findings into custom insights that could be packaged for specific advertisers and prospects, the research teams incorporated brand usage and preference questions for the top endemic brands. This could be used to gauge the audience’s level of engagement with the brands and to potentially derive profiles specific to an advertiser’s customer base.
Leverage the findings
Upon completion of the fieldwork (559 completed surveys among male hunters and anglers age 18+) and analysis, the key thrust of the project team was to determine the best means with which to leverage the findings and their implications for Versus and its advertisers. First, the data showed superior demographics, endemic category spending patterns and field sports participation levels for Versus viewers relative to the competitive set (Figure 1). 
Further, the data gave the Comcast sales and marketing teams a platform from which to position its audience as category influencers, thus indicating an opportunity for advertisers to extend their reach by connecting with the Versus audience. Versus Country viewers also demonstrated a greater propensity to spend in non-endemic categories that would be attractive to advertisers outside of the vertical space.
We also compared the study results with a syndicated research proxy (using Boolean logic) of “male adult Versus viewers” AND “participate in hunting in the past 12 months” OR “participate in fishing in the past 12 months.” The frequency of Versus viewers’ participation in hunting was roughly comparable across the two studies, while the Sports and Leisure Research Group data suggested that Versus viewers were more likely to participate frequently in fishing activities. Most interesting, however, was a comparison between respondents’ self-identified spending levels in the endemic categories, which was an order of magnitude greater among the Sports and Leisure Research Group sample. At the same time, a further comparison with non-endemic spending categories (e.g., clothing, home remodeling) indicated results that were more in line with the syndicated data (Figure 2). Our conclusion: directly speaking with our viewers indicated a level of passion and commitment to the outdoor activities even beyond our expectations.
The data also opened windows to redefine “purity.” While certain endemic advertisers questioned the format change from Outdoor Life Network to Versus as one that detracted from an outdoor focus, cross-media evaluations within the research demonstrated Versus Country as more efficient in reaching committed and influential field sports enthusiasts, as well as more captivating in its content and the resonance and credibility of its on-air personalities. Of all the outdoor program hosts evaluated in the study, Versus’ host Bill Dance ranked No. 1 as “One of My Favorites.” Versus’ hosts took four out of the top five spots and eight out of the top 10.
Educate clients
Finally, the research captured and crosstabulated habits, behaviors and attitudes of outdoor sports enthusiasts toward a variety of leading endemic and non-endemic brands. This data was crafted into custom modules that could be presented by the sales force help clients better understand how they can differentiate themselves against their own competition through a marketing relationship with Versus.
For example, for a large outdoors retailer, the Versus sales team provided a side-by-side comparison of the outdoor participation habits of their own hunting/fishing customer and how they overlapped with the Versus audience. The insights into their own customers, in addition to the insights into the viewing patterns and preferences of the hunting/fishing viewer, helped build an ongoing partnership with the retailer.
On the programming side, the research confirmed the importance of having entertaining, relevant programs with knowledgeable hosts. Versus subsequently reaffirmed its commitment to having quality shows with the most trusted and credible presenters in the industry. A young talent named Benny Spies will host a show beginning in fall 2010 called Gun It with Benny Spies. Spies has the potential to be a true crossover star whose show could resonate outside of the traditional field sports audience. Starting in 2011 - with ESPN2 scaling back on most of its outdoors programming - Versus, in more than 75 million homes and the fastest-growing sports cable network in the country, will continue to offer the most audience reach in the genre.
Richer understanding
It has been said that research in the media market is analogous to a lamp post, in that some use it as a support to lean upon while others use it for illumination. The research strategy and its application here met both criteria. Sports and Leisure Research Group partnered with the Comcast insights team to design a proprietary study that allowed Versus Country to both explore the benefits and challenges created by its rebranding while simultaneously garnering a richer understanding of its audience.