“JICS don’t just measure what’s going on they also police what might happen in the future”

In response to the article ‘Do agencies care about media research?’, Richard Bedwell, consultant, says the view that the media researchers are just making jobs for themselves is very old fashioned and backward looking. And surely no agency management would ever want to be accused of that?

“Agency management (indeed management across the spectrum of the industry) may or may not ‘get it’ but one thing is for sure is that they, to a certain extent at least, resent the ‘policing’ part of the media research world.

The JICS don’t just measure what’s going on they also police what might happen in the future. That means, as the BARB presentation (at MediaTel’s Future of Media Research event last week) so ably showed, that no stone is left unturned to make sure that even currently insignificant bits of audience delivery are investigated just in case they turn into something that all parties regard as important further down the line.

Agency chiefs may have less sympathy with the decision to spend time and money looking at what might, or might not, be important in the future. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, especially in more recent years, is that you can’t assume anything and that nothing can be swept under the carpet in the hope that it will go away.

The view that the media researchers are just making jobs for themselves (and spending ‘my’ money doing it) is very old fashioned and backward looking. And surely no agency management would ever want to be accused of that?”