When you think about location data, you might not immediately think about sports. However, when you merge location and TV data, you can see how and where consumers are watching sports in real-time — and whether ads during games are actually driving them to store. The combination of location data with raw TV data is unique, and we are just scratching the surface of it!
Consumer Viewing Habits of Live Sports
Let’s consider why live sports are different that any other TV programming, and why we need to measure ads that run during them differently. Sports are one of the only programs that people are still watching in real-time — 95% of sports viewing is live. What’s more, sports are a co-viewing activity, as people often watch them together rather than binge watch them solo.
Advertisements during live sports are also less invasive than in other programming, as they occur during time-outs. Consumers are not missing valuable game play when ads run, as opposed to when they watch their favorite reality TV show that’s constantly interrupted by ads.
Since people are consuming sports differently than they are other types of TV, it’s important to reevaluate how to measure advertising during games. Combining location data with TV data can reveal many valuable insights, such as whether people viewing a brand’s ad during a live game are actually visiting the brand’s store afterward.
Footfall Attribution for Sports Bars
By connecting location and TV data, one can understand whether people viewing a brand’s ad in a sports bar are visiting that brand location afterward. There’s currently a huge dark spot in TV ratings, because traditional TV measurement is not taking into account the massive number of people who are watching games at sports bars. By only measuring households, advertisers might be missing out on the large chunk of viewership that occurs in bars.
Take the Super Bowl, for example. By combining location data with TV viewership data from manufacturers, it’s possible to match into TVs airing the big game at a bar, and then determine whether people viewing the ads at that bar then visited a brand’s location or not. In this way, it’s possible to identify the visit lift that came from bars during the Super Bowl.
Game Sponsorship Measurement
In terms of innovative ways of using location and TV data, we’re only scratching the surface. Another way the two can be used in conjunction with one another is through sponsorship attribution.
For example, if Tostitos sponsors the Fiesta Bowl, they can use location and TV data to see whether the sponsorship influenced people to visit stores selling Tostitos products. This is a powerful metric for measurement, as it is grounded in real-world visits.
Impact of Advertising on Stadium Visits
Finally, another use case for merging location and TV data is regular footfall attribution, which can be especially helpful for determining whether promos drive more stadium visits. For example, if the NFL advertises it’s Ticket Exchange product, does that actually drive more people to visit any given stadium on a Sunday? Footfall attribution enables the NFL to measure this, and thus be able to determine the ROI of their campaigns.
These are just a few of the many examples of what can can be done when location and TV data are combined. If you’d like to find out more about how to measure TV advertising with real-world consumer actions, take a look at this blog post.
