The TVB (www.tvb.org), the not-for-profit trade association of America’s commercial broadcast television industry, today unveiled a special-edition analysis – People Talking Politics – of the Keller Fay Group and TVB American Conversation Study that looks closely at media’s influence on daily political conversations and engagement. The People Talking Politics analysis was released today at the AAPC’s 2014 Annual Pollie Awards & Conference in the “Amplifying the Candidates Message: How to Maximize the Interplay of Traditional Media, Word-of-Mouth and Social Media” session moderated by Jim Innocenzi, President of Sandler-Innocenzi.

Results from the American Conversation Study demonstrated word-of-mouth interactions as the most important mode of their daily conversations by a substantial margin compared with digital interactions. Specifically, face-to-face conversations now account for 77% of consumers’ conversations daily compared to less than 10% of conversations taking place through email, instant messaging or social media – with the percentage of face-to-face growing to 79% when conversations are about politics.

The 2014 People Talking Politics analysis provides important insights to candidates and their campaign strategists, political agencies and issue advocacy groups as they evaluate various media options to effectively deliver essential campaign message points to voters.

Key findings of the People Talking Politics analysis include:

• Citizens have the majority (79%) of their Local Political conversations face-to-face compared to online conversations (less than 10%);
• TV is the dominant influencer of local political conversation
  • 61% of respondents referenced television as the media source that sparked their political conversation outpacing newspapers (24%) and online (21%);
• When discussing local politics, two-thirds of all respondents claimed to have referenced something they specifically saw on local broadcast television news during their conversation, making local broadcast the leading source of information among television outlets.
• Broadcast television websites accounted for four of the top five sources of digital advertising that prompted, sparked or was referenced in local political conversations, outpacing social media sources by a ratio of 3-to-1.

“Heading into the 2014 mid-term elections, it’s not only critical for candidates and political strategists to evaluate which medium can deliver their campaign messages but it’s also increasingly important to understand which medium most influences the face-to-face conversations of voters – the clear driving force of message impression and engagement,” said Steve Lanzano, President and CEO of TVB. “The People Talking Politics study shows that not only does television allow candidates to reach the largest possible audience, it is by a wide margin the dominant influencer in creating post message delivery engagement and conversation.”

Stacey Lynn Schulman, Chief Research Officer of TVB, said, “Over the last decade, several studies have proven the relationship between conversation and memory, with increases in message recall of up to 80%. Conversation has the power to reinforce candidate messaging, reminding voters of the issues through repetition and negotiation of meaning. With so much influential power at stake media partners that promote face-to-face conversation should be a critical element of any political campaign strategy.”

Lanzano concluded, “Candidates need to deliver their message in a medium that provides large scale and influence. The People Talking Politics study demonstrates that local broadcast TV remains at the center of local politics and is the dominant source for reinforcing political messaging through the increasingly influential face-to-face conversations of voters.”

About the American Conversation Study and People Talking Politics Analysis

TVB worked with The Keller Fay Group, a full service marketing research and consulting company dedicated exclusively to word-of-mouth marketing, to conduct the American Conversation Study. Throughout the month of April 2013, Keller Fay conducted an online survey of 2,011 nationally representative Adults 18+ about online and offline conversations they had during the prior day. Respondents were asked to answer in-depth questions about up to five different categories of conversation, including what media content or advertising may have “sparked” or informed their conversation. In total 9,391 conversations were analyzed in the TVB’s analysis. The People Talking Politics report is a special-edition analysis that is specific to the study’s findings around local political conversations.

About TVB

TVB is the not-for-profit trade association of America’s commercial broadcast television industry.