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MROC Case Study from ABC Studios

Karen Manne, VP of research with Disney, presented "Journey inside the ABC Studios Advisory Panel" at the MRA First Outlook Conference. ABC Studios is the production company for the Disney television group, producing shows such as Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, as well as Castle, FlashForward, Legend of the Seeker and Lost, among others. "We started building this community three years ago," said Karen. "ASAP (the ABC Studios Advisory Panel) was the first online community at Disney and the first for program planning in the TV industry."

The community currently has 1,900 members, who are each heavy viewers of at least two ABC Studios shows and who are opinion leaders: people who are passionate about television and regularly talk to their families and friends about the shows they watch.  Membership fluctuates, as members who don't log in for at least three months are purged occasionally; a purge six months ago reduced membership to 1,400. Unfortunately, the panel is not gender balanced: 86% of the members are female; Karen recently went to ComicCon to unsuccessfully recruit more men for the panel, but most men only watch one of the ABC Studios shows.

Members are not given monetary incentives at all, but participate because they want to have a hand in shaping TV programming. They are sometimes given digital access to TV shows and also see sneak peeks of shows.

For a time, members could refer friends to the community, but Karen has stopped that practice. Too many referrals were skewing some of the research, as members invited others with identical views on particular characters or aspects of the shows.

Here are some anecdotes about the community by show:

• Brothers & Sisters - The producers were interested in viewer opinions of several of the male characters; rather than tip their hand into which characters they were most interested in, they did a general study of all the male characters on the show.
• Castle - As an entertainment company, ABC Studios is able to provide unusual rewards to its members. Three heavy contributors to the site were invited to a book signing of Heat Wave, a real book marketed as if it were written by the fictional Richard Castle (played by Nathan Fillion, of Firefly). These community members were given the VIP treatment and were photographed meeting Fillion; this was then publicized in the community.
• Grey's Anatomy - One problem Karen has experienced is the occasional leak of sensitive information from the panel. A poll about the character Lexie was released to the public, for instance. As a result, for some sensitive polls, respondents are no longer shown the results. ("Polls are a favorite of members, since they're a quick and easy way to provide feedback.")
• Scrubs - ABC bought the rights to this NBC show and is relaunching it with an altered premise this season. The season premiere was uploaded for community members, who were encouraged to watch the whole episode and provide feedback on the significant changes to the story. Initial viewer reaction was positive.
• Ugly Betty - After three years of working at the fashion magazine, Betty is finally getting a makeover, and ASAP members reviewed seven possible new looks. Through leaks from the community, this lead to fevered coverage in blogs (Perez Hilton: De Uglifying Betty) and the entertainment press, and finally, even, the Wall Street Journal ("Making Ugly Betty Prettier: To gauge viewer reaction, ABC turns to online focus groups to test its star").

For ABC Studios, the benefits of ASAP are many:

• Provides easy access to consumers
• Yields quick feedback on insights and attitudes
• "Spontaneity allows for flexibility"
• Targeted research
• Viral marketing

Many research projects are quite small and targeted, leading to shorter, more focused questionnaires. Karen has done literally a 1000 projects in the community.

Karen said, "I love my community but it is not all puppies and rainbows - it takes a lot of work." Some of the cons:

• Unable to verify that members aren't reporters or competitors
• Requires ongoing investment of time and money to recruit new members
• Leaks of sensitive material to the entertainment blogs and press
• Piracy of episodes posted within the community
• Qualitative data is voluminous and time consuming to analyze
• Busy work - during off-production times (such as the summer) need to have community activities to keep members engaged for when they are really needed
• Victim of success - get pushed for rapid turnaround because executives realize the community enables it

For all its cons, Karen said the benefits outweigh the challenges. "Online communities are the hot new ticket in market research."

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