How to hold television accountable

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 15, 1995 by Suzanne Zelkowitz, Hugh White

Historically, golf product manufacturers have not had the ad budgets to use mediums effectively, other than print. But with the advent of cable and increased sports telecast time, there has been a big shift toward TV. LNA/Arbitron figures charting total ad spending for golf equipment vendors from 1989 through 1993 show that while the magazine pie grew from $30 million to $61 million, the TV pie increased from $17 million to $46 million: Relative share of magazines to TV shrank from 65:35 in 1989 to 56:43 in 1993. Hugh White (pictured at tight), vice president, research and marketing, NYT Sports/Leisure Magazines, which publishes Golf Digest, went beyond the ratings to investigate the medium. The tide is using that research to prove TV may not be the most efficient medium for golf product advertisers. Here, White tells how they did it.

It's a question of accountability. Magazines have ABC statements. We have to go to advertisers with a quantitative analysis that shows not only who the readers are demographically, but also what their purchase patterns are, what they do, etc.; we have to prove that we're delivering potential customers. TV has never had to do that. It just comes up with ratings with limited demographics--ie., total viewers per household by very broad age and income parameters.

Yet our industry's advertisers were increasingly awarding schedules to television. We had to show the manufacturers and their sales reps, as well as the golf pro shop retailers--who were pushing for the switch0-that while TV might be a great medium for building brand awareness, it is not as effective as print for selling golf equipment. The TV people were not going to measure themselves. So we decided to do it for them.

The first thing we did was market research. We measured in detail the demographics of the TV golf viewing audience. We collected not only demographic data on all the viewers in the audience, but information such as the percent who play golf, are frequent golfers, were viewing during the last televised pod of commercials, and the percents who zapped, zipped, flushed or created a Dagwood sandwich while the ads were viewed by the family dog.

Armed with that information, our second step was to get a real reading of how golfers use TV as an entertainment medium. In other words, do they religiously watch TV golf every week, or do they select tournaments to watch, or is it haphazard viewing and not what the TV industry calls "appointment" TV. To do this piece of work, we hired Market Facts, the research company that measures the golf marketplace for the National Golf Foundation each year, to do a recontact study of "core" golfers, asking them a battery of behavioral questions. Third, in May and June of 1994, we hired Irwin Broh Associates to conduct a series of interviews with pre-identified buyers of golf clubs during that period of time. We asked those purchasers to help us define the buying process itself, and determine what place advertising held within the process and where and how they used print versus televised golf ads to form their purchase decisions.

And last, throughout this entire learning-curve process, we had one of our in-house research analysts closely monitor all golf telecasts, advertisers and Nielsen ratings across the first six months of the year.

The most significant finding was that less than half of TV golf viewers actually play golf. This means that there's a great deal of waste for a golf product marketer. Additionally, in analyzing the viewing behavior of frequent golfers (the heart of the market), only 30 percent of this group viewed a 30-second spot. The remaining 70 percent were either channel-surfing, out of the room, or in the room doing something else and not paying attention. Further, 66 percent of frequent golfers considered magazines best for product information compared with the 22 percent who cited television.

We had done our homework. Now, we had to present our findings effectively. We decided on a three-pronged approach using a trade-ad campaign, direct-mail sweepstakes and slide presentations to educate retailers, manufacturers representatives and the manufacturers.

We are running an ad campaign in our trade publication, Golf Shop Operations. One head is aimed at the pro shop retailers' pocketbook: "Which drives more customers through your shop? An ad on televised golf--or an ad in Golf Digest?" Sourced key points compare television and Golf Digest's reach; and a call to action reads: "Ask your manufacturer what their 1995 Golf Digest schedule is."

We used our list of manufacturers reps from comp lists for our direct-mail effort. Four self-mailers tied into points in the trade ads. The last piece stressed accountability by directing reps to ask their marketing directors whether television reps answer questions like, "How many golfers does every TV buy deliver?"

The third prong is a slide presentation with handouts for manufacturers' senior marketing people. A Golf Digest marketing expert puts TV through the same accountability procedures that manufacturers put magazines through on a daily basis. Our research showed that, in general, ratings have declined because of the fractionalization of the medium. In 1995, TV golf is even blurrier, with CBS losing a number of major golf market affiliates and the introduction of the 24-hour Golf Channel on cable. Moreover, when you boil viewership down to golfers who are in the room watching, TV is an expensive option on a CPM basis.