The increasing complexities of the media environment are well documented. Greater channel choice continues to fragment audiences. The growth in the number of multi- set households and video recorders has led to more personalised viewing. More importantly, the increase in usage of remote controls means that the opportunity for viewers to miss TV commercials has never been greater. The combination of these factors means that television planners and buyers must pay greater attention to the quality, as well the quantity of advertising communications. In 1993 and again in 1994 The Media Partnership UK conducted research under the title of Quality of Viewing. From representative adult samples of over 2 in each case, each study gathered data on over 400 television programmes under the following topics : - whether the programme was ever watched - how often - who usually decides to watch - level of attention - programme involvement. As part of the first study, research was carried out to identify whether there was a relationship between levels of programme involvement and commercial recall. It was found that when viewers are highly involved in a programme, the incidence of watching the commercial break is 49% higher than by those viewers claiming low involvement. In addition, highly involved viewers demonstrated correct commercial recall up to 30% greater. In both studies, respondents were selected from the Target Group Index. This provides the facility to analyse programme involvement levels not only by a full range of demographic groups, but also by product purchasing characteristics. This information helps place an added value judgement on programmes, differentiation between programmes where there are no cost or coverage advantages and a hierarchy of programme requirements for individual products.
The paper gives illustrations of new types of analyses and findings of television audience behaviour and how the segmentation analysis is used in programme planning and scheduling. The findings are based on analysing the respondent -level data of metered audience measurement. In 1991 1992 and 1993 the segmentation analyses were carried out on the basis of people meter sample of over 1000 persons representing the population of 10 years of age or older. The purpose of the analyses has been to divide the Finnish population into TV audience segments which have different viewing behaviour 'models', and so to better understand the TV audience. The Finnish television audience has been now, this year, segmented for the fourth time. The first segmentation was canied out in 1991 and the results were presented during the ESOMAR/ARF Worldwide Broadcast Audience Research Symposium held in Toronto, 01-Mar lune 1992. The results of the 1993 segmentation were presented at the ESOMAR/ARF Worldwide Broadcast Audience Research Symposium in Paris, lst-4th May 1994. We now have the preliminary results of the segmentation of the data of 1994. In this paper it is described in chapter 2 how we use the TV audience segments as the main tool in developing channel coordination and programme scheduling. Although we have only two channels at our disposal, it's quite problematic to schedule those channels so that programmes for the same TV audience segments are not offered on both channels at the same time. We have also been able to combine social attitudes and values with TV viewing as additional properties of TV audience segments and although the analysis is in it's initial stage, they have proved to be very useful tools in scheduling and programme planning.
A great deal has been written about the challenge of trying to "globalise" advertising in terms of its impact on consumers in different cultures and different parts of the world. More recently, the ability to reach consumers in fifty countries at once by satellite or computer has opened up amazing media possibilities. Less publicity is given, at least in research circles, to the practical barriers which inhibit multi-country advertising and other forms of commercial communication. In considering the global picture, we tend to forget that Europe - arguably the most complex conglomerate of nations ever to try to unite together - faces a communication problem more challenging both practically and psychologically, after a thousand years of different languages, customs and laws, than many of the new ideas whose challenges are mainly technical.
The present paper explains why the French press decided to create a new readership measurement tool. It discusses the technical and political reasons behind the change in the screen, the choice of vertical questioning, the introduction of a question on yesterday reading for all magazines, and keeping AIR as definition of press readership. The article then goes on to explain the consequences of the methodological choices: - increase in number of titles getting through the filter; - increase in number of occasional readers and stability of that of regular readers; - the various changes in weeklies and monthlies; - the observed inconsistency between number of yesterday and day-before-yesterday readers of weeklies; - the value of the new data from yesterday reading and the difficulties in using them.
In Italy Television is an extremely important medium used both for mass and non-mass products. However the socio-demographic segments most struck by TV are always the same: the elderly, low income classes, i.e. often the segments which are less attractive for advertisers. Our study presents a methodology - called Telebersaglio (literally TV bull's eye) - which allows us to "target more precisely", i.e. to strike those segments that are hard to hit (young people, high revenue classes, working people). To achieve this result the 7 cases of the Auditel sample (fundamental survey on TV audience in Italy) have been analyzed for two years, assessing their TV viewing habits in relation to the consumption quantity. Viewers were split into 5 classes of TV consumption. On the basis of a different selection of commercial breaks, these classes - applied in addition to the traditional socio-demographic and psychographic variables - enable us to improve results by up to 30% in terms of GRP'S, frequency, effective coverage and uniformity of the frequency distribution curve.
The Danish Multi Media Index (DMMI) contains a wealth of information on all important aspects of media published in Denmark. This paper describes the methods of the measurements conducted for the individual types of media as well as the highly detailed back- ground information which is collected on a single-source basis, i.e. from the same respondents. The information contained in the DMMI is used via MaWin, a dedicated Windows program which ensures that all types of information and analysis can be used, even by users without much experience.
More and more we seem to understand that the aim of media planning cannot alone mean to select the best bargain within the advertising vehicles available. An optimum use of media requires the integration of media planning along with the actual marketing planning. Thus, media decisions nowadays turn into strategic decisions. Questions regarding budget allocation or media mix in "the" saturated markets of today cannot be answered by the classic media selection programmes. Moreover, the classic programmes cannot give any realistic recommendation in view of market share developments of competitive brands. Saturated markets require a special planning programme, we call it SOM-Share of Mind, which takes into account, simultaneously, the advertiser's own advertising activties and those of the competition. The results of the enhanced evaluation, the SOM- scores, reveal the impact of "own" versus the competitive advertising contacts per target person against the background of the whole spectrum of the advertising exposures in the product field. This way, the question can be answered whether it is better to avoid competitive advertising by using different vehicles, or meet the competitor head-on.
This paper sets out to: Compare the published radio audience figures for a wide range of countries in Western Europe, as generated by their national audience measurement systems. Look for any systematic differences in the figures being reported by diary-based and 24-hour recall systems respectively. Examine evidence of the reliability (or otherwise) of these two conventional techniques for measuring radio audiences - not least what happens to figures when methodological changes are introduced. Report the professional opinions of the public broadcaster research community of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two techniques. Examine empirical evidence of the validity and reliability of radio audience measurement systems. Argue for more debate within the research community towards a consensus on preferred technical procedures for radio audience measurement - separately for 24-hour recall on the one hand and the 7-day self-completion diary on the other. Demonstrate the pay-off of such initiatives in terms of the value of more robust radio audience figures, to meet the needs both of senior broadcasting management for basic measures of public accountability and of the advertising community.
The old medium Videotext, connected by computers to a voice response telephone system, can transfer videotext into interactive television. This new medium is used for several purposes. One of them is to use interactive videotext for media research. In the Netherlands three parties found each other in experimenting in the Phone Text panel. In this panel of 1.000 households Intomart conducts media surveys and ad hoc surveys on advertising effectiveness. The technique is completely in the hands of Teleworld, and IP is the sponsor who also is responsible for the connection to RTL4 text. The paper describes the technique and examples of three surveys. The conclusions are that the opportunities for this new instrument are big, especially in continuous surveys.
Today media planners are often faced with a wealth of information about consumers' media habits, use of products and services, demographics, and lifestyles. However, in marketing any particular product or service, it is often difficult to determine the most effective media mix to reach the consumer. In the past, the media planner has used demographics, geodemographics, psychographics, and other similar "...ics" to try and determine the particular characteristics of their target consumer. Once a marketer determines the characteristics of their target consumer, it is often a lengthy process to then determine which are the most likely media through which to address these people. For the past two years, we have been investigating whether or not it is possible to segment people by their media habits. If we can assign people to groups for whom we know their particular media habits, then cross-referencing these groups with users of any product or service will provide us with sufficient information to make an informed judgement about the most likely media source through which to market the product or service. Using a comprehensive media data base, we were able to identify 16 segments, each with different media habits.
This paper considers how media research should develop in the context of the changes affecting the major media. It describes the major influences and concerns which are having an impact on the mass consumer media and highlights the limitations of conventional research in addressing these. The paper suggests that it will be necessary for industry media research to move away from the existing monolithic systems towards more flexible methods. These should complement each other and should lend themselves to the development of a database which will provide key measures for all major media, on a common basis. The conclusion is that whilst an eventual single database source of media audiences may still be over a decade away, those concerned with media research should already be considering the development of services which will fit with this eventual requirement.
The ACTS research technique is part of a new telephony revolution which has made a host of new services available to the population. At the heart of these new phone services are powerful and versatile computers capable of answering huge numbers of incoming telephone calls automatically using digital technology. They can play pre-recorded messages down the line, interact with callers, recognise simple words and collect data such as names, addresses, credit card details, competition entries, and answers to research questions. The industry that has grown up to deliver these services is known by a variety of names such as "Audiotex" and "Premium Rates" which refers to the fact that with many such services a percentage of the overall call charge is passed to the organisation providing the information requested by telephone. However, not all automated services are charged at Premium Rate - some are free and others are paid for at the local rate regardless of where the call originates. The ATIEP Guide -1 informs us that "With 28 miliion phones in the UK automated phone response has a huge potential audience, and is one of the fastest growing areas in telecommunications. During the 9 months from April to December 1993 traffic increased 19% by volume and 7% by revenue (BT figs). More than five million calls a week are made to Premium Rate Services alone, generating an estimated £250 million revenue in 1993. The UK now has one of the most mature Premium Rate Service industries in the world.'