Measuring Media Audiences: The Need for an Audience Engrossment Scale

To date, research examining product placement effects has focused on the placement quality (i.e. modality, prominence, method of depiction, temporal quality, plot connection and use by star). But placements are embedded in a program, so how they are processed is also determined by how the audience interacts with the program. Essentially, the quality of the mental and emotional involvement the audience has with the program will impact how the placement is processed. For this reason, we need to have adequate measures of audience interaction quality. This paper presents a case for an 'engrossment' concept and identifies key constructs that an engrossment scale should contain.