Other highlights of the World Cup’s popularity include:

• In the U.S., 112 million people, or 37% of the viewing public, watched part of the games. This is 27% higher than 2006.
• In addition, about 64 million people – or about a third of all U.S. Internet users – visited a World Cup-related website such as ESPN.com, Univision.com, FIFA.com, or Yahoo! Sports.
• In the blogosphere during the three months May-July 2010, 6.2 million people were exposed to World Cup buzz on blogs and chat rooms, and they saw 15.1 million buzz impressions.

The World Cup presents tremendous opportunities for reaching a large number of consumers, but perhaps even more important, a large number of very engaged consumers. The intensity of consumers’ involvement in the World Cup is extremely high and as Nielsen has shown in the past, a viewer’s engagement with a program is a good indicator of how engaged he or she will be with a commercial message.

Nielsen’s ad effectiveness business looked to see whether there was any link between being an official World Cup sponsor and viewers’ engagement with those ads. In fact, Nielsen found that Official sponsors had a higher net “Likeability” on average compared to commercials from other, non-sponsor World Cup advertisers. The insights from Nielsen’s ad effectiveness research were borne out by our research into online conversations. Most of the official World Cup sponsors became the most buzzed-about brands online.

The World Cup was a great laboratory to test out new ways of gaining insight into how consumers interact with the World Cup. One of the many innovative projects Nielsen undertook for the World Cup was our Life360 digital ethnography initiative, which gave us an intimate, revealing true-to-life view of how people used media during the games.

In our Life360 projects, we ask a specially recruited panel of consumers to record their engagement with media, purchase behavior, or other activities for a limited period of time. In South Africa, for example, we recruited a panel of 420 respondents, equipped them with mobile devices and asked them five times a day to answer surveys that measured their interaction with media, brand awareness and select expenditures — along with their mood and a photo. Surveys were collected at homes, work, fan parks, stadiums and other venues, yielding a trove of data and 54,000 images.

In the U.S., our Life360 work involved equipping 100 respondents with video cameras and asked them to record their engagement with the tournament across platforms (for ESPN & Univision). Nielsen Life360’s research demonstrated the intensity with which viewers interacted with the games. It also showed that viewing among Hispanics was an all-family affair, with women tuning into games in high numbers and creating fútbol parties – with special dishes, team colors and cheerleading of their favorite teams.

The dollar shift accompanies a rise in audience size for Univision and Telemundo, which garnered 11 percent more viewers last year.  But audience size is only part of the story: ads that are developed specifically for the Hispanic audience (versus those that are simply lifted or translated from general market TV spots) are received more favorably among Latinos and earn higher brand and message recall. 

Read the full story about how language holds the key for marketers trying to reach the burgeoning Latino market in the current edition of Consumer Insight.

ABC’s “Barbara Walters Special” rounded out the top three.

Overall, CBS won the night with an average audience of just over 11.3 million viewers, while ABC took second place with just over 7.4 million average viewers. FOX and NBC claimed third and fourth places with roughly 7.3 million and 5.9 million average viewers, respectively. Univision followed in fifth place with an average audience of almost 4.9 million average viewers.

CBS’s “NCIS” and “The Mentalist” rounded out the top three with approximately 18.1 and 15.9 million average viewers respectively.

Overall, ABC won the night with an average audience of almost 17.5 million viewers, while CBS took second place with just over 14.8 million average viewers. FOX and NBC claimed third and fourth places with roughly 10.5 million and 7.4 million average viewers, respectively. Univision followed in fifth place with an average audience of roughly 4.5 million average viewers.

ABC’s “20/20″ and FOX’s “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?” rounded out the top five.

Overall, CBS won the night with an average audience of just over 11.1 million viewers, while ABC took second place with almost 6.1 million average viewers. FOX and NBC claimed third and fourth places with roughly 5.7 million and 4.3 million average viewers, respectively. Univision followed in fifth place with an average audience of roughly 4.2 million average viewers.

ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” was sandwiched in between the two, in second place.

Overall, CBS won the night with an average audience of just over 13.7 million viewers, while ABC took second place with almost 11.2 million average viewers. NBC and Univision claimed third and fourth places with roughly 7.7 million and 4.6 million average viewers, respectively. FOX and the CW followed in fifth and sixth places with average audiences of roughly 4.6 million and 3.8 million average viewers, respectively.

CBS’s “Criminal Minds” and “CSI: NY” rounded out the top three, with 14.3 million and 11.8 million average viewers, respectively.

Overall, CBS won the night with an average audience of just over 10.8 million viewers, while ABC took second place with almost 10.5 million average viewers. FOX and NBC claimed third and fourth places with roughly 8.4 million and 6.3 million average viewers, respectively. Univision and the CW followed in fifth and sixth places with average audiences of roughly 4.8 million and 2.8 million average viewers, respectively.

NBC’s 8pm to 11:30pm coverage of the voting results claimed second place, and ABC’s 8pm to 9pm Election Night coverage rounded out the top three.

Election returns coverage on CBS, FOX, and Univision dominated the rest of the top ten.

Overall, ABC won the night with an average audience of just over 13.2 million viewers, while NBC took second place with almost 12.5 million average viewers. CBS and FOX claimed third and fourth places with roughly 7.4 million and 4.7 million average viewers, respectively. Univision and the CW followed in fifth and sixth places with average audiences of roughly 4 million and 2.4 million average viewers, respectively.