TAM ADEX has successfully completed an experiment of measuring viewerships for non-TVC elements for large sporting events. So far, media planners and advertisers could only assess the viewership for TV Commercials and Promos. Hence, an evaluation of whether those spot-buys delivered ratings and reach was possible to do.

"What was not getting captured, however, was the OTS that's delivered for a brand through a 'Replay Bug' or a 'Scroller' during Cricket. The brand logos and signages on the ground are paid for by advertisers but what kind of viewerships do they generate was also not getting captured. Hence advertisers could never quantify the success of investing money in these elements", said Atul Phadnis Director, S-Group, TAM.

To overcome this problem, TAM ADEX designed a two-stage experiment for the FIFA World Cup. The first stage was to capture all the ground signages, logo flashes, blurbs, and other non-TVC elements. The second stage was to fuse this information with the Viewership data to generate GRPs for the same. (Read the details of methodology below)

"The results are amazing! The most visible brands were not those which took the highest number of spots in the event but in fact those who took ground sponsorships of FIFA", said Phadnis. As shown in the charts above, the 960 GRPs that Coke derived for all the Ground Elements that it sponsored during FIFA is much more than Pepsi's 209 delivered through Spot-buys on Ten Sports. Maybe the comparison is unfair, as the Ground Elements are only logo-exposures whereas Spot-buys are brand messages. But even if one were to discount the Coke GRPs by half (480 GRPs) or by a third (320), it still is greater than Pepsi's 209!

This kind of an exercise now provides Planners and Marketers a framework to evaluate Ground Sponsorships versus Spot Buys during key sports events as also the new emerging concept - in-program advertising.

Note on Objective and Methodology: Since this was a test case, ADEX coded Ground elements and other non-TVC elements only for Round 16 to FIFA Finals Each of these elements were coded for a series of parameters ncluding duration, exposure-type and Visibility Scores [scaled from High to Low] This ADEX data captured by our Baroda facility was then fused with the TAM viewership data to arrive at viewership estimates for Non-TVC elements Clients can factor in visibility scores to down-weight viewership to arrive at a more accurate assessment of which of the non-TVC elements worked in delivering brand and logo visibility The data would help in arriving at benchmarks for pricing/ buying these ground elements and other visibility opportunities for future sporting events.