NewMediaMetrics's 360 Cross-Platform Emotional Attachment(TM) Study Released

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jun 26, 2012) - Brand strategy firm NewMediaMetrics today released the findings of its fifth annual 360 Cross-Platform Emotional Attachment™ (EA) study, which indicates that consumers' emotional attachment to all media types rose in 2012 to the highest levels in five years. And for the first time, services such as Netflix and Hulu were becoming preferred content platforms, gaining significant ground on broadcast and cable TV networks.

The proliferation of digital devices that enable content consumption everywhere is one likely factor for the increase. More than ever before, consumers feel the pull of TV networks, web sites, newspapers and magazines (digital and print), apps and even out-of-home media such as cinema and shopping malls, and they are engaging with media more deeply, according to the data. Tablets showed the most dramatic increase in EA™ among all media platforms with a 59 percent jump in 2012.

Denise Larson, who co-founded NewMediaMetrics with Gary Reisman in 2004, said, "People have thousands of content choices to consume across various platforms. We went through the digital 'Newfront' in April, and we're still in the middle of the Upfront. Marketers should be asking themselves if they're prepared on all fronts."

As a result of the multiple content and platform choices, audiences are splintering into even smaller segments across the media spectrum. However, each media property is garnering more intensely loyal, emotionally attached viewers, according to Reisman. 

"The challenge for marketers is to tap into the media properties and content that are most aligned with their brand's customers," Reisman explained. "For instance, if the people who are highly attached to Hulu or Netflix are also highly attached to Burger King, it would stand to reason that a portion of Burger King's media dollars should be allocated to those platforms. Not quantifying the relative alignment between your brand's high-value buyers and their various media choices is like chasing your tail in today's media landscape."

NMM's 360 Cross Platform Study aligns the high-value customers of more than 350 consumer brands to the media and content they most intently consume or "pull" to them and view. The ROI is in quantifying and leveraging this contextual alignment.

Interestingly, one of the only media properties to decline was AOL. As a platform, AOL held steady over the past four years but in 2012, Emotional Attachment to its home page went from 21 percent in 2011 to 11 percent in 2012, meaning that each impression is worth less than half of what it was worth just a year ago.

Other indicators that AOL has fallen out of consumer favor:

• Emotional Attachment to AOL email dropped 61 percent in 2012
• EA for AIM (instant messaging) fell 30 percent
• The only EA bright spot was for AOL's Huffington Post, which rose 3 percent

Through its proprietary methodology of measuring Emotional Attachment, NewMediaMetrics can identify with pinpoint accuracy, the media that will most likely generate return on investment for brands. As audiences continue to fragment and the reach-per-media-outlet dwindles, EA measurement becomes increasingly important.

Larson said the company also looks at media from the opposite perspective -- where media dollars should not be spent -- to minimize risk for brands and eliminate waste.

Other findings from the 2012 360 Cross-Platform data were as follows:

• Google Search remains the single most attaching media property (among the nearly 400 measured in the study).
• Netflix blows away Hulu, with a 49 percent EA measurement among 18-49-year-olds
• Still, Hulu's year-over-year attachment went up 4.5 percent in 2012
• Attachment to Facebook, though still strong, dropped slightly from 2011, with a 6 percent decrease among 18-49-year-olds; particularly interesting, since the data was collected before Facebook's IPO
• The top three TV networks among 18-49-year-olds were ABC, CBS and Discovery

NewMediaMetrics developed its 360 Cross-Platform Index in 2008 and now has five years worth of trends about consumer attachment to media properties and brands.

About NewMediaMetrics
NewMediaMetrics (NMM), founded in 2004, is a strategic marketing-optimization company that helps marketers increase revenues by redeploying resources toward marketing efforts most valuable to their core customers. NewMediaMetrics helps marketers and media companies improve their ROI by "LEAP-ing" -- Leveraging Emotional Attachment for Profit. NewMediaMetrics's proprietary, predictive LEAP™ Platform identifies and targets high-value, revenue-producing customers with messages and media predicted to perform best -- re-allocating resources and investments toward initiatives that will optimize results.