Is UK Media Research The Best In The World? – MRG

The MRG evening held on 25 August was the first in a series held to celebrate 30 years of the MRG. Brian Jacobs, International Media Director of Leo Burnett was billed as speaking on “Why UK Media Research is the Best in the World?!” However, the first thing he asserted was his preferred title was “IS UK Media Research The Best in The World?”

Brian maintained that in order to define “Best” there were four areas that needed to be looked at:

• Structure
• Access to data
• Systems
• People

STRUCTURE

Brian believes that our Joint Industry structure is better than many others, with everybody working together, thus avoiding lengthy technical debates at the beginning stage. Brian digressed at this point to add that in his opinion, media research exists to provide a common currency, but it is not about discovering an elusive truth; the data can never be absolute, merely directional.

Despite the relative success of the joint bodies, he is still disappointed that on his return from working abroad, still no-one is able to provide specific issue readership, for example, despite the fact it has been debated for years; he was pleased to see that newspaper section readership is just now being addressed.

ACCESS

The UK industry has much to be proud of in this area. Brian believes that all data should be available to all subscribers; the Joint Industry structure helps in this open access by giving a voice to agencies, which is not the case elsewhere.

However, when it comes to funding, UK media research is under and improperly funded, funded too much by media owners. South Africa was held as a very good example. The system there is a levy of 0.5% on display ads, which is used to fund research. The UK spends an equivalent of 0.2% on research, or £14m. A levy is seen as a good idea because it links funding with the rest of the industry.

Brian sees funding as the key to media research; for example, the reason no specific issue readership data is available is because media owners, who provide the funding, do not want it.

If the UK does not lead in funding, and we do not, then we can not lead in the media research field.

ANALYSIS SYSTEMS

The US do not have the most creative planners, but they do have excellent systems, including separate systems specialists. The introduction of American systems, such as IMS and Telmar, has helped the UK market to improve.

PEOPLE

UK Media Researchers Brian sees as the “top of the pile” compared to other countries; also most other markets, except the US, have fewer researchers. However, Brian did comment that media owners tend to see media research as tedious, and not one of their core functions.

In summing up Brian concluded that the industry is structured right, funded wrong, but with great people. His conclusion was that the industry needs to be harder edged. Future challenges are successful pan-European research, and pan-regional research world wide.

Questions from the floor were led by Harold Lind, who said that in his opinion there is nothing wrong with media research in the UK, the problem is that it is not used properly. It is used as a currency, but not for sensible planning. Planning too often means “qualitative research”. £ to continue … Brians reply was that Harold had a point, but agencies have got a lot more sophisticated in using data.

It was pointed out by Peter Jenkins that the UK industry has complications in funding because of the BBC backing of BARB; this means the UK is not level with other countries; he reminded the MRG that last year the BBC was pushing for cuts in the funding of BARB.

Hugh Johnson of Channel 4 predicted that in the future TV research will become less sophisticated, with press research, however becoming more so. He added that if media owners did more themselves with the data, they would value it more and provide more funding.

Hugh asked about the impact the opening of Zenith will have on the US market; Brian replied that Zenith’s putting of media together with BSB is a defensive move because Zenith is not a major player in the US. He cannot see business there being affected. Ends.