Television Advertising that Works: An Analysis of Commercials fro ...

Interestingly enough, according to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary (1997), engagement has four different meanings: appointment, employment, a mutual promise to marry, and a hostile encounter. Regardless of its definition, in nonmedia terms, the ANA, the American Association of advertising Agencies, and ARF have embraced it as a possible metric to replace frequency in media planning. Joe Plummer, chief research officer at ARF, defined engagement at the 2006 ARF re:Think conference as follows: “Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context” (Creamer, 2006). ARF has spearheaded the engagement initiative, which is still under construction.

One attempt at operationalizing television commercial engagement came in the 4th quarter of 2005 from an agreement between Court TV and Starcom. The agreement adds a viewer-engagement component, which includes a proprietary viewer-attention component and a viewer-retention component. These proprietary engagement components are then applied to the standard Nielsen Media impression number to achieve an over-all engagement factor (Consoli, 2006).

Measuring engagement continues as a work in progress. However the industry decides to measure engagement, a single metric is unlikely since the term can and has been defined in many different ways. The Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) (2006) published an extensive and thorough white paper discussing the development of and aspects contributing to the engagement measure. According to their study and survey of the literature, engagement has many meanings. Terms often associated with engagement include: involvement, connection, resonance, stickiness, experience, wantedness, and relationship.