Cross-Media Measurement Could Be Way Forward

Cross-media measurement could be the way forward for the media research industry, according to some of the panellists at yesterday’s MediaTel Group seminar on the ‘Future of Media Research’.

Speaking at an afternoon session on innovation, Andre McGarrigle, director of research & customer insight at Guardian News and Media, said that “web analytics is turning things on its head a bit. In print you have to use traditional methods to get the same information you can get easily from web analytics. That changes everything for us”.

“The way forward is probably in multimedia measurement,” he added.

Andy Brown, CEO of KMR Group, agreed, saying: “Cross-media measurement has to come because cross-media ownership will drive it.”

McGarrigle said that, as far as innovation is concerned, the most elegant and immediate research solutions “are those which set out to solve a specific problem”.

However, he added that “A big barrier to [innovation] is having access to the academic work that is being done. You can use it to fuel ideas or underpin the validity of what you are doing. Over time there will be more close working with academics”.

Meanwhile, fellow panellist Richard Helyar, head of channel insight at BBH, said: “Innovation is a creative agency’s bread and butter – we think that analysis of data is the next innovation.

“The data that makes the most impact has been free, for example Google trends – it’s the most compelling [data] and it’s free – it’s an insight into what’s actually happening.

“Data has a habit of becoming more freely available, although you only see it in pockets at the moment it will become more available.”

Also on the panel was Sue Elms, executive VP of global media practice at Millward Brown. She said that the industry as a whole is always on the lookout for new things from outside its own sphere of reference that it can use as stepping stones to innovation.

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