NEWS
Alicia Rankin
Director of Research
National Football League
THE NFL TARGETS KIDS
Leflein: If you had to describe the NFL in three words how would you describe it?
Rankin: We define the NFL’s Brand Essence as Intense, Meaningful, and Unifying. Intensity goes to the competitive nature of the sport, how one team lines up against another and every play counts. The NFL is meaningful in a number of ways, one of the most important is having a shorter season compared to other sports makes each week more of an ‘event’ for fans and something to look forward to. Lastly, there is no U.S. sport like the NFL that is able to unify fans together on a local, national, and even global level as well as we do. The Super Bowl is the ultimate testament to that.
Greg Kahn
Optimedia
SVP Strategic Insights
A STRATEGIST'S RESEARCH PET PEEVES
Leflein: How would you say that the way you think about planning has changed?
Kahn: As we all know, media is being consumed all day and the time spent with media is increasing. There are also many more channels within which to consume media and much of this activity is happening simultaneously (i.e., watching television, surfing the Web, and talking on a cell phone at the same moment.) It’s important to understand this consumer behavior before determining where we place, and the timing at which we place, our media.
Archive
Ken Schlager
New Jersey Monthly
Editor
HOW RESEARCH SELLS ISSUES
Leflein: What steps have you taken to maintain quality research standards?
Schlager: Let’s focus first on top doctors because that’s the biggest one for us. First of all, traditional things, you want to get the highest response rate possible. We go to The Medical Society of New Jersey which sends out reminders for doctors to vote although the society can’t officially endorse the survey. Secondly we try to keep the ballot to one page although the greater majority of doctors now are voting online so the physical size of the printed ballot is not as significant anymore. But we do try to keep the survey short despite the many medical specialties listed. In our latest survey, we also added a blue-ribbon panel of doctors to review the results.