MUMBAI: TAM India S-Group is planning to meet key Indian broadcasters for their viewpoints on its recently conducted proprietary research involving in-house channel programme promos. TAM will also publish a research paper on this new technique by end of this year.
While speaking to indiantelevision.com, TAM India CEO LV Krishnan confirms that the S-Group team has been interacting with Professor John Philip Jones from Syracuse University and author of concepts like Recency and STAS on TAM India's research paper!

"In fact, Professor Jones has gone to the extent of saying that 'your whole approach and analysis is extremely interesting'. He has also shown inclination to publish parts of our analysis in his next book!" adds Krishnan.

Basis this analysis, ADEX has already restructured the way promos were being coded and reported in the ADEX software. For this restructuring, the firm has been taking inputs from key broadcasters including - Sony, Star, Zee, Turner and MTV.

ADEX has recently released a list of eight different types of promo categories that it will use to differentiate varied promo formats. This information can then be used by broadcasters to analyse promos and their effects.

While talking about the origin of this specialised once-of-its-kind research, TAM India S-Group director Atul Phadnis says: "For the last one year since the time, we took over ADEX from ACN ORG MARG, we have been trying to see how does the integration of TV Monitoring services like ADEX with the TAM viewership data benefit the industry. Obviously, the moment you integrate these two powerful databases, not only do we know which ads and promos were being shown on TV but also come to know how many people were able to view these commercials and promos!"

The TAM S-Group team at that point (end last year) decided to experiment a key powerful idea... which was that if it could track which channel was running a programme promo; and could fuse that with the viewership data to find out how many people saw that promo. Phadnis says: "We also tried to check whether we could track of all those who were exposed to the promo, how many actually came to see the programme itself!"

There were lots of unanswered questions placed before the S-Group team as it grappled with this complex concept. These questions included:
* Were promos impactful enough to inspire audiences to come and see the programme itself?
* How many times do you need to expose them to the programme promo that says - "Watch this programme", * Watch this programme", before audiences come in to watch the programme itself!
* If you change a programme promo and better it, does it impact the 'conversions' into that programmes viewers?

Phadnis adds: "Answering these questions is critical because when a channel runs its own programme promos, that's actually 'advertising refused'! It's an opportunity cost as far as a channels concerned and no longer just 'free unused inventory'! Also, some brands ride on these promos and the fortunes of these brands as well as the programs that they are sponsoring rest on these promos. Hence the criticality of the issue."

While referring to the latest developments, Phadnis claims : "We have now accomplished a series of tests and experiments. We are happy to announce that we have a pretty good idea on how programme promos work! We know for instance that the moment you correct a faulty promo plan, it straight away has an effect on that programme's performance. We know for instance that the right promo plan can get the right kind of audiences in as well as save the channel millions of rupees worth on opportunity costs!"

"TAM India has used the power of the net to empower the industry" - TAM India S-Group director Atul Phadnis

"Our systems are extremely sensitive to changes in the environment" TAM India CEO LV Krishnan