MRG Conference: Thinkbox CEO Criticises Google Research
Tess Alps, CEO of Thinkbox, echoed the thoughts set out on day one of the MRG conference by Walker CEO, Phil Georgiadis, although in a much more playful manner, when she offered her thoughts on Google, the IAB, and PR-driven research in her keynote speech on the final day of the conference in Vienna.
Commenting on a Google press release titled Internet Overtakes TV As Favourite Medium, Alps said this was “wrong on so many levels.”
It was not robust research – a survey carried out only amongst net users. “It suggests a net Vs TV fight to the death, but the net is more analogous to print or broadcast, and search is the perfect compliment to TV,” she said.
And “why dig at Television?”, or any other medium. Thinkbox, she assured us, “will not be conducting research that attempts to denigrate other media.”
Alps also gently critiqued the IAB’s definition of engagement. “The internet is a medium where you search for information, that is very different to TV or print engagement,” she said. However she fully recognised that “all display media needs to fight for investment against short-term pressures.”
Regarding press coverage, she said that she was “disappointed” that she had not been able to stop “unreasonably gloomy stories about TV,” despite reminding journalists of television’s very impressive statistics. “Journalists seem to forget that data pretty quickly,” she said. “We have damaged journalists’ faith in research because of too many pieces of poor PR-driven research.”