This paper is an update of the Advertising Research Foundation's historic 1961 monograph "Toward Better Media Comparisons". It has been revised to include new levels of paid media performance attentiveness, persuasion and response and to consider new media types, especially online media and Interactive TV. The new model contains eight levels at which media performance can be measured to help marketers plan their advertising campaigns: vehicle distribution; vehicle exposure; advertising exposure; advertising attentiveness; advertising communication; advertising persuasion; advertising response; and sales response. The way advertisers think about media has changed in the last forty years. The Internet, Interactive TV and Direct Response advertising have expanded media's job from simply exposing a message to include encouraging and facilitating a response. The concept of recency has focused marketers on advertisingâs contribution to making the next sale. And more and more, it is on response that media are being judged. Media measurement has no choice but to follow mediaâs newly expanded purpose.
This article overviews consumers interests in new video technologies, which will deliver both high quality video entertainment and Internet/information services, in other words video technologies which bring convergence. Two independent sets of qualitative information enhance the understanding of current consumer interest. The first, a system based on the theory of diffusion, assigns people to groups based on their interest in adoption of new technologies. The second, a consumer segmentation system, assigns persons to groups based on their current involvement with media technologies as well as their media and personal values. Results show that consumersâ interest in and inclination to purchase new video technologies depend on the characteristics of the offering, content as well as platform. Video platforms and entertainment contents appeal to nearly all groups regardless of their innovation tendencies, whereas the PC platform has narrower appeal with most interest among the earliest adopter groups. Results have important implications for the positioning and marketing of new video technologies.