No wonder half your money is wasted

James Whitmore, MD of POSTAR, shares some interesting learnings (and amusing observations) from a recent European media research conference…

I have just returned from a European media research conference.

We live in a homogeneous world. From Paris to Kiev, from Oslo to Bucharest, there are few differences in the challenges that advertisers face or in the solutions that are brought to bear. We saw representations from all media. In line with current trends, the internet was represented out of all proportion to its interest or importance.

The hope in attending these get-togethers is that one might come across something startlingly different, something that makes you think again. You wish to challenge your prejudices and ward off complacency.

I remember a few years ago seeing Russia’s first forays into measuring the out-of-home audience. No commercial research here. Moscow City Council conducted the study and it asked for degrees of agreement to statements such as (I paraphrase), “posters are a blight on our magnificent City architecture” and “advertising is distracting and dangerous”. To our eyes these might seem to be terribly negative questions. I cannot help thinking that there might be something in this manner of enquiry, if only to alarm the respondent into paying more attention when completing the questionnaire.

At the conference, such challenges to our cosy assumptions were thin on the ground.

By the middle of the second day I was hoping that the spiders would eat all the cookies and we could go and sit in the sun. I was desperate to see something a little odd. The Presbyterian Church has produced the first Scottish NRS – “admit it, you have been looking at evil advertisements, you have sinned and you will rot in hell”.

My mind was wandering. If Gandhi had set up TGI, would his questionnaire have reached a second page? How would the TV industry react if Dylan from the Magic Roundabout ran BARB?

Salvation came from the Romanians. Did you know that the sample frame for their readership study is based on data they source from the police department? Perhaps the News of the World might produce an establishment survey for a new celebrity NRS?

And did you know that Slovenia had an Advertising Arbitration Court? Their immediate concern is a radio station that runs ads on air and in the press explaining how to answer questions from their version of RAJAR. This includes the offer of a cash incentive if you correctly name their station and claim to listen to it all day long.

And then it was back to the sodding internet. Although I suppose it is mildly interesting to note that 87% of young Norwegians visit Facebook every day. This makes it the second biggest medium after… posters.

A gentleman from GfK showed the best chart. His study purported that although nearly all advertisers claim to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns, fewer than half actually set any business objectives for their advertising.  Thus clients don’t always know why they spend money on advertising but they are damn sure of its effectiveness.

Genius. People are selecting media on their ability to be measured as opposed to their relevance to a brand’s business objectives. Finally we know why an apocryphal 50% of the advertising budget is wasted – it’s because half the time companies don’t know what they are trying to do.