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Sept 23 2003 Home

CONSUMER
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Comparing the HBO and Showtime Consumers Using the al berrios & co. Research Approach

Abstract

With internet being better in general for data gathering than phone, mail, or focus groups, it is imperative that researchers utilize it more effectively. (I have queried other primary-data gatherers and researchers about the effects of the "do-not-call" list on their business and all claim that it wouldn't present a problem to their businesses. Since they're not selling, they're exempt and confident of consumer acceptance and believe they can continue to call consumers for their feedback on a limited basis. But the loss of the telephone medium by marketers, however, is expected to increase direct mail and email solicitation, potentially decreasing the response rate of surveys conducted using these media.)

Because email and incentives have been the predominant combination for recruiting on the internet, marketers that continue to think of the internet the same way they think of traditional media have never thought to exploit the internet's natural community environments. al berrios & co. has developed and mastered an unobtrusive combination of observation and intercept-interview techniques that has yielded valuable, true-to-life quantitative and qualitative data for our firm and clients, as well as a simple, yet effective way to code and tabulate the data, all within a fraction of the time of traditional data-gathering means, and all without incurring any additional incentive expenses.

To demonstrate the viability of this method, this paper explores the mindset of the premium cable viewer based on data gathered from promotional efforts and analyzed for this study.

Other than countless programming and personnel-related articles in Variety, Cableworld, Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, Television Week, Hollywood Reporter, Advertising Age, Medialife Magazine, L.A. Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal, as well as a book by James Dacon Scott written in 1976, and a recent, in-depth study done by HBO, which isn't likely to get into the hands of non-HBO folks, actionable data on the premium cable viewer remains virtually non-existence. Without revealing any confidential strategic information about either Showtime or HBO, (whom this author has worked for in the past two years) this paper will offer brief insights into this audience, make recommendations based on this insight, and in the process present to the reader a better way to conduct research using the internet.

Click here for complete study (in document format), presentation (in Microsoft Powerpoint format), and complete data (in Microsoft Powerpoint format). Click the images below to enlarge. (May take a few extra seconds to download.)

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