Who’d be a Researcher in a Digital World?

I always feel some sympathy for the systems guys in the media industry – especially at the agency end, where the role seems to consist all too often of aborted (potentially interesting) projects replaced by (far less interesting) fire-fighting. But competing hard for our sympathy vote are surely researchers these days – and in that case I mean the guys who are meant to be delivering the research, not those using it.

I went to the launch of Nielsen’s new “hybrid” measurement system yesterday – which will ultimately replace the current UKOM methodology and data systems. The new method gives us broader data from more devices and the potential for more accuracy too, as it combines people and site data, but with a firm emphasis on the people end.

I won’t go into any more detail – I am not qualified, and to a large degree not very interested either – and I am sure most readers will be more concerned with what this means commercially. Will the “new numbers” show higher usage for my sites? Will they give me more and better data I can use in planning and buying, etc?

The presentation did drive home how devilishly complicated research is becoming; and also how difficult it is to change anything once a benchmark number is out there – even if the changes come with many universal benefits. Nielsen is managing this particular task, and would admit it has made a couple of cock-ups along the way, but their quest is for the most accurate, wide ranging information about what we all do online – on any device! And there are a heck of a lot of devices to be measured now.

BARB is going through similar efforts to track non-linear TV viewing. Often criticised for not moving faster, the starting point for BARB is any new or additional measurement method must be of an acceptable standard. That doesn’t seem too unreasonable. However, you worry occasionally when media owners or agencies demand numbers now – and also that these have to be very similar to their own internal figures or to existing data, or what powerful internal stakeholders believe. Of course one understands the commercial issues, but what happens when the researchers’ methodology is proven to be better, but your numbers are lower. Back to the drawing board probably, given that media owners pay the bulk of research fees. Why would you pay for something that might lose you advertising money?

So we demand advances in data collection from our researchers, whilst devices proliferate, but only with numbers that suit us; and most of us couldn’t give two hoots about the methodology! Easy!