Knowledge Center

Articles, Presentations and Videos

A selection of Nomos’ public-domain articles, presentations and videos covering such topics as cross-platform media measurement, advertising effectiveness, consumer media behavior, generational change and the shift from conventional research methods to those premised upon Big Data.

What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Why Print Advertising Works?

With the advent of brain imaging technologies, neuroscientists around the world have had new tools to understand how we read, process images, and comprehend communication.  However most of this technical literature is inaccessible to non-specialists.  This white paper reviews scientific work from the past decade — particularly research comparing reading on-screen to reading on-paper.  It provides interesting clues to the reasons for the resilient performance of print advertising. Download article:  Neuroscience White...

Technology-Driven Changes to Market Research and the Social Sciences

How is the era of Big Data, machine learning and robotics affecting the structure of opportunity in the fields of market research and in the social sciences? How will the job market change? What new fields of study will open up? How should graduate training programs be adjusted to accommodate the rapid developments in this field? Presentation deck from the first invited Matrix Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, January 2015. Download Article: Technology-Driven Changes to Market Research and the Social...

What’s Ahead for Marketing Research?

Edited video of keynote address to the Marketing Science Institute in April 2014: View Video: Social Technological And Economic Forces Affecting Market...

Do Young People Read Magazines?

We often hear the print is dead or dying – that young consumers rarely read or read only on the screens of their mobile devices. Using the demographic method of cohort analysis, this 2012 paper analyzes 40 years of MRI data to see whether the conventional wisdom has empirical support. It shows that, for many magazine categories, consumption of print-platform magazines is substantially higher now than it was for the same age groups 10 and 20 years ago. Do Young People Read...

Does Better Measurement Benefit the Medium?

It is often argued that media that afford better (more accurate, more timely, more detailed) measurement will gain market share over media that are poorly measured. But what has been the historical experience when measurement improves for any given medium? This 2011 paper looks at 60 years of media measurement in the US and the UK and finds little evidence to support the conventional wisdom that better measurement benefits the measured medium. Does Better Measurement Benefit the Medium...

Behavioral Metrics for Assessment of Tablet Audiences and Advertising.

In 2010 many magazine publishers launched tablet editions. This 2011 paper reviews the passive behavioral data on how those editions are used and outlines the problems of integrating these data with conventional magazine audience metrics. Download Article: Behavioral Metrics for Assessment of Tablet Audiences and...

Extending Marketing Mix Models to Magazines.

Over the past 30 years, many marketers have used “mix models” to optimize their media spending to achieve higher ROI. However these analyses are only as good as their inputs. This 2010 presentation to the Marketing Science Institute, co-authored with Sunil Garga, shows how magazines can best be incorporated into marketing mix models. Download Article: Extending Marketing Mix Models to Magazine...

Opportunities to Influence: Increasing Ad Impact in a Multi-Platform World.

How many ads do people see when spending 30 minutes watching TV, reading a magazine, or surfing the web? How many of the “seen” ads get remembered? This controversial paper, co-authored with Poltrack and McPheters and presented at the ARF in 2009, was the first documentation of the problem of low “viewability” of digital display ads. Download Article: Opportunities to...

Time-Based Comparisons of Media Effectiveness.

What happens when we compare ad exposures over time for print, digital and TV? What accounts for differences in ad effectiveness for those three media? An analysis presented at the 2009 PDRF. Download Article: Time-Based Comparisons of Media...