Measuring Today’s Evolving Media

Ahead of MediaTel Group’s forthcoming ‘Future of Media Research’ seminar on Thursday, Chris Boyd, chief executive of the ABC, explores the future of cross-platform accountability, the Group Product Report and why media measurement needs to keep evolving…

As consumers, we are all now very aware of the dramatic changes that are taking place in our day to day lives. Not only in the media, but increasingly in the way we go about buying the products and services that we require, and even more so in how we communicate with each other. Virtually all of these changes are being driven by technological innovations utilised by organisations and quite often individuals, in order to drive competitive advantage and to provide consumers with new and compelling offerings.

In some cases, the old maxim of ‘satisfying consumer demand’ is just not relevant these days, as consumers are often totally unaware as to what they might be missing until such time as the new service or piece of technology has been launched to the market. All very exciting!

The media has been at the forefront of many of these developments over the past few years and words such as ‘fragmentation’ and ‘convergence’ are now viewed as almost ‘last century’. Everything that media analysts and pundits were talking about that would change the way we all interact with ‘our’ media in the coming years has happened for the most part, and much more.

Community sites such as YouTube and MySpace are now very much mainstream and part of millions of young peoples’ lives. We can also watch what we want, when we want and how we want. We are all very much in control. And this is just the beginning!

However, whilst the content delivery methods might have evolved, advertisers still need to communicate effectively with their specific target audiences. At the same time media, whether print or digital, still require media owner accountability in order to ensure transparency and trust in the platform being offered.

ABC has been at the heart of this accountability issue for a long time. Firstly for print, then events, or as it is known now, face to face, and since 1996, digital/online/interactive. Every year £billions of advertising expenditure is traded in titles and electronic properties that subject themselves to regular certification and reporting to industry agreed rules and standards.

ABC has been listening and working with advertisers, media buyers and media owners over the past six to 12 months to establish the most effective way to continue to evolve and supply what the market requires in relation to media measurement within this fast evolving environment.

The simple solution would have been to provide reports that add the online activity of a brand to the traditional print figure. So, the audited average daily unique users per month for a paper’s website added to the monthly average for the parent print product. However, everyone agreed, that this would be like adding the proverbial ‘apples and elephants’ together and hence would be meaningless. What ABC has delivered to the market in order for cross-platform certified performance to be reported on a regular basis, is the Group Product Report.

This allows each platform that is audited by ABC/ABCe to be placed together in one report with detailed breakouts from each individual certificate together with trend data over the previous periods. Within the National Newspaper sector, the GPR is being used by News International, The Telegraph Group and the Guardian Media Group on a monthly concurrent release basis, which is optional at this time for all publishers to join. This is a first specifically for reporting online data. More media owners in both this sector and others are currently reporting their cross-platform performance in this way, or shortly will. Key to the GPR though, is that the various figures are not combined.

Buyers see this as a significant move forward in reporting as the GPR delivers comparable, cross-platform accountability and transparency. But where do we go from here?

ABC is continuing to work with buyers and sellers of advertising on the possible next stage. But these conversations take into account how buying, within certain buying points, still reflects the more traditional individual platform focus. Although this is fast changing, especially as media owners are now reorganising themselves more into cross-platform sales hubs.

Through its membership of the International Federation of ABCs (IFABC), which represents around 37 audit bureaux around the world, ABC has joined a World Association of Newspapers taskforce to look at print/web measurement potential.

This Media Measurement Integration Task Force has been formed to explore the possibility of some sort of global standard for combined print and digital metrics to benefit two key stakeholder groups, newspaper and digital media owners together with advertisers and advertising agencies. This taskforce is formed of a number of research-based operations and selected audit bureaux. Whether or not this group will be able to deliver such a standard, and more importantly if it does, whether or not the many individual markets around the globe will accept such a standard is yet to be seen. The key aspect, and why ABC through the IFABC is involved, is that informed discussions are taking place.

One thing is for sure – delivery of advertising messages to consumers and users will continue to use an ever-growing range of media platforms. Advertisers need to know how their advertising is working. Media owners (both traditional and new) providing these platforms need to be able to deliver comparable accountability. We, at ABC, will continue to ensure that the most appropriate reporting is available to ensure the market can achieve this.