Using Research to Understand Consumer Interest
By: Kimberly Grant
People just want to escape and have the freedom to do so. At least, that’s what the Discovery Channel found out when it was looking to fill the void left behind by its hit television show, Deadliest Catch. For information purposes, Deadliest Catch is a documentary-style series in which the audience gets to watch sport fish. This show was quite popular for the Discovery Channel, until its star met with an untimely demise during the show, which caused the series to end.
Channeling Discovery
This cancellation left Discovery Channel with a need to discover new shows to produce for their audience. In order to do that, Discovery Channel decided to fill their line-up with similar fishing docuseries that did not play well with its audiences. There was a disconnect.
Luckily for the Discovery Channel they had the benefit of coming up with a great question to identify their needs for researching why their new shows weren’t doing so well: Why do viewers like a particular TV show as opposed to a similar show?
Using good marketing research, Discovery decided to use a 3-prong approach, which included: 1) in-depth interviews with nine TV industry experts, 2) ethnographies with 10 TV viewers in different regions, and 3) a national online survey that saw 2,600 respondents. This research led Discovery Channel to come up with a hypothesis that people watched TV to fulfill an unmet need.
Content Escapism
The qualitative and quantitative research data, inevitably, yielded some very important information about Discovery Channel viewers and TV viewers in general: People like content that allows them to escape and enjoy a sense of freedom; even if its temporary.
It’s a simple conclusion with a big connotation. Anyone who loves a good story, loves to escape. Personally, it’s why I love to read and watch TV/movies. It’s also one of the reasons why I write. My novels allow me to escape into a world that is of my own creation.
That said, using this knowledge in marketing is beneficial. Giving a target audience a sense of escape, even if its within a 30-second advertisement, can mean the world of difference. It will make the audience stop and take note or pay attention to the marketing message. This escape can also block out that pesky noise, because the audience is getting that subconscious need for escape.
Escapism isn’t a new concept. It’s not even a complex concept. It’s just a great way to reach an audience that makes them happy and is mutually beneficial for any organization looking to offer their product or service. After all, we all just want to discover that temporary freedom to escape.
