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Geoff Wicken,
TGI Global Product Development Director, BMRB International
Research
is key. It underpins accountability and is a fundamental pre-requisite
of media-neutral decision making. To quote Mike Walsh, Chairman of Ogilvy
& Mather, "A media-neutral, consumer-focussed strategy, driven by research,
analysis and insight rather than by habit and convention, is the most
effective way to build lasting brands".
So what
are the sources of research for media-neutral strategic planning? I would
classify them into three types. First, ad hoc work, whether qualitative
or quantitative, from project-specific studies to proprietary multi-client
surveys run by media agencies. One can't generalise here - a study's usefulness
will always be dependent on its quality.
Second,
the media currency measurements. Here is where the debate about media-neutrality
(and whether or not it exists) must centre. These sources - BARB for television,
NRS for press, RAJAR for radio and so on - all concern themselves specifically
with the single medium they measure.
This is
for very good reasons - it means each survey can be focused on making
the single-medium measurement as relevant and precise as possible. Since
they are used as trading currencies, it's important that they offer reassurance
to the advertisers whose money is being spent. But they do not, and probably
cannot, measure 'opportunities to see' in an even handed, media-neutral
way. Even their reporting frequencies vary (e.g. BARB daily and NRS quarterly).
With television
in particular, the nature of the data and the immediacy of its publication
engenders a sense of accountability. Media buyers can react on a daily
basis, and post-campaign analysis can be reported in great depth.
I believe
the currency surveys will always remain specific to the individual media.
Any move away from this would be likely to downgrade the particular measurements
that the currencies exist to provide in the first place.
So they
don't - indeed, they don't set out to - offer comparative 'media-neutral'
information. The relative communication value of one medium against another
isn't part of the brief. If it were, the attention given to the currency
value would be less. So, interested parties commission their own studies
to investigate - we have seen a number of projects from media agencies
recently. Neither can the currencies contain measures of brand awareness
achieved via advertising - which is where tracking studies come into the
picture.
Furthermore,
the currencies only seek to describe their respondents demographically,
or in other words with 'segmentational neutrality'. Will this satisfy
an advertiser who is trying to impact consumers' behaviour and attitudes?
Modern-day
computing power makes it possible to do far more with the analysis of
research data than has ever been possible before. Several organisations
are employing fusion and other mixed-media modelling methods to link databases,
with particular focus on bringing media currencies together. One can debate
the merits of the methods themselves; beyond this you need common measures
to act as links between the surveys. Since the surveys are mostly media-specific,
this brings us back to demographics as the means of making such links.
So as far
as media-neutrality is concerned, looking at the currency surveys, respondents
are measured in ways uninteresting to the advertiser, and they are measured
in different boxes.
The third
type of research source is the planning database, exemplified by TGI.
Not coincidentally, TGI was born in the late 1960s, at the time when the
founding fathers of Account Planning were establishing agency structures
based on their visions. The planning culture, as it subsequently spread
through the agency world, certainly helped to provide the backdrop for
the growth of TGI. Thirty-three years later, TGI data is more widely used
than ever (both in this country and in some forty others around the globe)
and one of its key uses is to support the 'new vision' of cross-media
planning.
One of
the fundamental principles of TGI, right from the start, was that it measured
multiple media. Another was that it covered consumers' category and brand
usage on the same survey as their media behaviour. If we were launching
TGI now, I'm sure we would describe it as 'media-neutral'. That's because,
well, it is media-neutral.
As a planning
tool - whether account, media or communications planning - TGI has always
offered media-neutrality. It's a data source that allows brand planners
to look at the comparative media consumption of a brand's users.
As its
users know, this is by no means the only purpose for which you can deploy
TGI. There are many more, which I don't propose to list here. Users of
the data consistently report that TGI performs an extremely valuable role
alongside the various media currency measurements (occasionally via formal
data-fusions) and thereby it underpins the media negotiation process too.
If the
challenge of combining currencies into a coherent cross-media system can
be met, along with the associated one of developing the appropriate analysis
tools, the cross-media buying information to co-exist with the cross-media
planning information provided by TGI will be in place.
This will
need to be on an international level. Companies such as Unilever are talking
about the starting point for communications decisions being the needs
of the brand. They are also talking about reducing their portfolio to
a smaller number of global brands. It's clear that the research solutions
to media-neutrality will have to have multinational application.
Global
cross-media deals are being done now. Trade press news items about them
are common. Recently one could read of a $300 million cross-media deal
between Viacom and Procter & Gamble, and a deal between AOL Time Warner
and Kelloggs involving TV and online sites.
But how
is the value of such deals established? And how will their success be
evaluated? The major global advertisers don't have this information at
the moment.
And at
this point we will run up against the fact that not only are the currency
surveys hard to compare across media; they are also difficult if not impossible
to compare between countries. There are plenty of national differences
between the world's television, press and radio measurement surveys.
"What am
I getting for my $300 million?" is a very big question. With the game
having moved on, this is the next challenge. The emphasis must be to make
cross-territory comparisons as valid as possible, and intra-country measures
as reliable as possible.
The media-neutrality
issue isn't restricted to one market. It's a worldwide challenge. And
whether its on a national or multi-national scale, if any planner delivers
anything other than media-neutrality they must, according to Mike Walsh,
be doing it out of 'habit and convention'. In the modern age of data availability
and analysis there is no excuse for that any more.
(c) Account
Planning Group 1995-2002
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