The New York Times:
A technician in a black lab coat gazed at the short, middle-aged man seated inside the Walt Disney Company’s secretive new research facility here last week, his face shrouded with eye-tracking goggles. Read ESPN.com on that BlackBerry, she told him soothingly, like a nurse about to draw blood. “And have fun,” she added, leaving the room.
In reality, the man’s appetite for sports news was not of interest. (The site was a fake version anyway.) Rather, the technician and her fellow researchers were eager to know how the man responded to ads of varying size. How small could the banners become and still draw his attention?
Like other television companies, Disney Media Networks – which includes ABC, ESPN, ABC Family and Disney XD – has long conducted intense consumer research about its programming. But now, as the Web and DVRs uproot the way people consume television, and thus rip apart the industry’s business model, the unit is adding advertiser research as a fresh focus of intense inquiry.
Continue Reading: “Science Tells Us Which Online Ads Work”
Photo by scataudo.