Media / Fox Sports

Fox Sports Wins With NASCAR Advertisers:
Predicting Success For Split-Screen Ad Format

Challenge

Consumers today can choose what to watch and when to watch it. This abundance of choice has proved challenging for networks like FOX Sports, whose NASCAR viewership was in decline—prompting the network to seek out new ways both to keep viewers engaged and to deliver increasing value to advertisers. One option they considered was double box advertising: splitting the screen between ads and the race during the commercial breaks. But advertisers were reluctant. If ads were competing with the race onscreen, would they still secure viewers’ attention? To answer this question, FOX Sports selected our company to accurately measure emotional engagement with double box advertising.

Solution

Our company evaluated race fans watching NASCAR events with advertising in either double box or full- screen formats. Using our Biometric Monitoring System™ combined with eye tracking, Our company proved that emotional engagement with the advertising was higher during the double box format. Additionally, the results showed that the new format drove more sustained visual attention to the advertising. FOX Sports used these insights to increase adoption of the double box format among advertisers and to create new opportunities to use it during NASCAR races.

Results

• FOX Sports increased the amount of double box advertising during NASCAR events.
• The success of the double box format with NASCAR has led FOX to test it with other programming.