DVD SS Pt B rev'd_mtd

Supporting Statement Part B for a Paperwork Reduction Act
Submission to OMB
FTC Consumer Research on MPAA Movie Rating on DVD Packaging and on Parental
Attitudes Toward Marketing of Unrated DVDs
OMB Control No. 3084-NEW

B.

COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS
1.

Description of Sampling Methodology

Mall Intercept Survey: As noted in Part A, the FTC has determined that the best method
for testing the effect of placement and size of MPAA rating information on DVD packaging is a
mall intercept survey, since it allows respondents to physically examine the DVD packaging as
they would when actually purchasing or renting a movie for their children. The FTC will work
with a contractor that has substantial experience in conducting mall intercept studies. The
contractor’s expertise will be useful in designing the research, administering the survey, and
drawing appropriate conclusions based on the results. The FTC staff and its contractor will use
procedures recognized in the marketing research industry as appropriate for consumer research
via mall intercept survey. The contractor will conduct the interviews at up to 10 malls across the
country. Locations will be selected to sample from diverse geographic areas. The staff
estimates that a survey sample of 400 parents, with children ages 7 to16, who have bought or
rented a DVD movie for their children within the past year, will require screening of
approximately 2,000 respondents.

The survey will rely primarily on a between-subject experimental design. By randomly
assigning respondents to one of the two treatment groups, the design will ensure internal
validity. Random assignment should ensure similar populations across treatments so that
differences in outcome measures between the two treatment groups reflect differences in the two
formats of DVD packaging.
Telephone Survey: As noted in Part A, the FTC has determined that the best method for
assessing parent awareness and attitudes about the marketing of unrated DVDs is an omnibus
telephone survey. This approach will allow the FTC to survey a nationally representative sample
of parents. The FTC plans to survey 1,000 parents, with children ages 7 to 16, who have bought
or rented a DVD movie for their children within the past year. The staff estimates that this
sample size will require screening of approximately 9,000 respondents. Staff chose to
incorporate the survey questions into the contractor’s pre-existing weekly omnibus telephone
survey as a more efficient and cost effective approach than a customized telephone survey.
2.

Description of the Information Collection Procedures

Mall Intercept Survey: After initial questions to identify parent respondents meeting the
screening criteria, the interviewer will use computer-assisted technology to randomly assign
respondents to one of the possible treatment conditions. Half of the parents will be asked to
examine a DVD movie case that displays the movie rating information as it actually appears on
the back cover, while the other half will examine the same DVD movie case, with the exception

that the rating information will be graphically altered to appear also on the front panel and in a
larger size. Within each of these two treatment conditions, parents will be divided into two
subgroups depending on the age of their child. Parents with a child age 7 to 11 will be shown a
DVD case for one of two PG-13 movies; parents with a child age 12 to 16 will be shown a DVD
case for one of two R movies. Parents with children in both age ranges will be randomly
assigned to one of these subgroups and questions will be asked with respect to the child in the
age range for that subgroup. The distribution of the sample across test cells is shown below.
DVD Mall Intercept Survey: Sample Distribution
Child Age 7-11

Child Age 12-16

Treatment

Package

Current Packaging

PG-13 (DVD
#1)

50

R (DVD #1)

50

PG-13 (DVD
#2)

50

R (DVD #2)

50

PG-13 (DVD
#1)

50

R (DVD #1)

50

PG-13 (DVD
#2)

50

R (DVD #2)

50

Altered Packaging

Interviews

Total

200

Package

Interviews

200

Once assigned to a test group, parents will be asked to briefly examine the DVD case and
then will be asked a mixture of open-ended and closed-ended questions designed to assess how
the placement and size of MPAA rating information on DVD packaging affects parental use of
the rating. The interviewer will read questions to the respondent and will enter the answers into
a computer program. At each mall facility, at least 40% of the respondents interviewed will be
men and at least 40% will be women.
Telephone Survey: The survey questions will be incorporated into an omnibus telephone
survey conducted on a weekly basis. Each weekly survey contains 1,000 interviews of a
nationally representative random sample of U.S. households. The telephone survey will be
conducted using the Random Digit Dialing (RDD) technique. The FTC staff determined that an
omnibus survey is preferable to a customized telephone survey. The questionnaire is short and
can be easily incorporated into an existing omnibus survey. In addition, the omnibus survey will
be more cost effective than a customized telephone survey. Given staff’s estimate that it will be
necessary to screen 9,000 respondents to obtain a sample of 1,000, a customized telephone
survey would be prohibitively expensive.

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After initial questions to identify parent respondents meeting the screening criteria,
parents will be asked a mixture of open-ended and closed-ended questions designed to assess
parents’ attitudes about the marketing of unrated DVDs, including how the absence of a rating
affects their decision whether to allow their children to watch the movie.
3.

Methods to Maximize Response Rates/Reliability of Sample Data

The FTC staff anticipates that the incidence rate of persons satisfying the screening
criteria will be 20% for the mall intercept survey and 11% for the telephone survey.1 The survey
instruments for both are designed to be comprehensive in collecting all data needed while
minimizing burden. They are as brief as possible, and skip patterns have been crafted to route
respondents efficiently through blocks of questions. Wording has been designed to be as simple
and concrete as possible. These factors should ensure that few respondents drop out before
completing the surveys.
Mall Intercept Survey: The FTC staff has prepared a power analysis of the mall intercept
survey using two scenarios. The first scenario assumes that altering the DVD packaging
produces similar effects for both PG-13 and R movies. In this case, we would jointly analyze
subjects viewing PG-13 and R DVDs, and compare the 200 subjects viewing current DVD
packaging against the 200 subjects viewing altered DVD packaging. In the second scenario,
altering the DVD packaging produces different effects for PG-13 DVDs than for R movies.
Staff would then analyze the impact of altered ratings separately for the PG-13 and R movies;
each cell would have 100 respondents.
In this table, p1 denotes the proportion of respondents who notice DVD ratings under the
current packaging and presentation format (control group); p2 denotes the proportion of
respondents who notice the DVD rating with the altered packaging (treatment group).
DVD Mall Intercept Survey: Power Analysis

p1
0.5
0.6
0.7

Case 1: PG-13 and R movies combined
n1 = n2 = 200, alpha = .05
Power for
Power for
p2
Two-sided test
One-sided test
0.7
0.98
0.99
0.8
0.99
0.99
0.85
0.94
0.97

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That is, 20% of persons intercepted at malls and 11% of persons called will have
children in the desired age range and will have rented or bought a DVD movie for any of those
children in the past year.
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Case 2: PG-13 and R movies separately
n1 = n2 = 100, alpha = .05
Power for
Power for
p1
p2
Two-sided test
One-sided test
0.5 0.7
0.79
0.87
0.6 0.8
0.84
0.91
0.7 0.85
0.66
0.77

Staff’s power analysis indicates that the sample size should be sufficient to identify
statistically significant results that are also of practical significance.
Telephone Survey: The omnibus survey uses a RDD sampling methodology, covering
the continental United States. The sample is randomly drawn from banks of numbers known to
contain at least one listed residential household. The sample is drawn in such a way to match
Census statistics in terms of population distribution across the Census Regions and Divisions, in
order to facilitate accurate representation nationwide.
The omnibus surveys are conducted on a weekly basis, with 1,000 interviews of adults
age 18 and over completed each week. Each omnibus survey is independent from other waves
of omnibus interviewing. The field period is 5 days per wave of interviewing, with 1 – 2
attempts made per night to reach a sampled household.
As a quick-turnaround, low-cost study, it is not feasible to issue advance letters in order
to increase cooperation. Rather, the procedures used to maximize response rate and reduce
respondent burden are to use experienced interviewers, familiar with the omnibus survey
process, and skilled in moving from one topic to another, as is frequently done in an omnibus
setting. As noted, multiple call attempts, spread across days and day segments, are made in
order to maximize the likelihood of reaching a respondent at home.
The omnibus study also looks to improve response rates by interviewing in Spanish
where appropriate, and by doing refusal conversions; approximately 50 to 100 interviews each
wave are completed by refusal conversion using highly-trained interviewers. The omnibus study
does not involve non-response bias efforts.
At the conclusion of the field period, results are weighted to reflect Census statistics in
the areas of respondent age, gender, education, race, Hispanic ethnicity, and population density.
It is expected that nine waves of interviewing will be necessary to complete 1,000
interviews with parents of children age 7 to 16 who have rented or purchased a DVD for their
child(ren) in the past year. Each wave of interviewing will follow the identical procedures as
described above.
The FTC staff recognizes that the omnibus survey will not yield results that can be
generalized to the target population with the level of precision that could be achieved by a
customized survey employing probability sampling procedures and techniques, such as advanced
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letters, designed to increase response rates. Because staff’s intent, however, is to use the results
of the survey to provide a general, qualitative (as opposed to precise, quantitative) indication of
the level of parental knowledge and attitudes about the marketing of unrated DVDs, staff
believes that the omnibus survey methodology is appropriate.
4.

Testing of Procedures or Methods Undertaken

Staff will pretest the mall intercept and telephone surveys by sampling up to 15 parent
respondents to ensure that all questions are easily understood. These pretests are also discussed in
Part A above, and are part of the collection of information for which staff seeks OMB approval.
5.

Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspect of the Surveys

The study design has been reviewed internally by Mary Engle, Associate Director for the
Division of Advertising Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection,2 Richard Quaresima, Assistant
Director for the Division of Advertising Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection (202-326-3130),
Patrick McAlvanah, an economist in the Commission’s Bureau of Economics, and Manoj Hastak,
Ph.D, a consumer research consultant with the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Division of
Advertising Practices. The contractor, Synovate (Contact: Timothy Amsbary at 703-663-7290) is
experienced in conducting statistically rigorous telephone surveys and mall intercept studies.

2

Ms. Engle recently assumed the position of Acting Deputy Director for the Bureau of
Consumer Protection.
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