Media research solutions for the economic downturn

Cathy O’Brien of Kantar Media argues that when media research budgets are under pressure, a measure of inspiration makes all the difference…

At this month’s MediaTel Group seminar on the ‘Future of Media Research’, the view emerged that the downturn will encourage more innovative research. Clearly no-one would advocate innovation for innovation’s sake, especially at the current time. However, there is a strong appetite to experiment with different models of working in order to generate cost-effective research insights. Media research buyers need smart solutions that give them more for less. At Kantar Media, we have identified three main themes to relieve pressure on budgets and generate additional value:

1. Collaboration with others

Collaborative approaches to generating insight are now more attractive than ever. Research companies can have a role in facilitating collaboration by bringing together like-minded clients to share the costs of undertaking large-scale ad hoc research (both quantitative and qualitative). Successful past examples of this kind of collaboration include ROAR and VIPer and we expect to see more.

Agencies can also provide syndicated surveys that allow organisations to buy research at reduced cost. In our own organisation we created Internet Monitor and, more recently, futurePROOF looking at consumers’ existing and future digital repertoires. The advantages are clear with the agency taking more ownership and media owners spending less of their budgets.

2. Partnership with agencies

• Free your data!

“We are drowning in data and lacking in insights!” is a key frustration voiced by Sheila Byfield, leader, business planning at Mindshare Worldwide, at the MediaTel Group seminar.

We know that assimilating knowledge from the vast silos of behavioural and media audience data available is a daunting task. Closer working partnerships between research companies and their clients can unlock the barriers between data silos, leading to truly audience or consumer-centric insight. However, you can only really ‘free your data’ if you are fully aware of the different conditions under which sources were compiled and the biases inherent in them. The job of the research company is to steer the best course to accurately interpreting your data.

• Data integration

There are now fantastic opportunities to build comprehensive single source customer insight databases. Thanks, in principle, to the availability of technology that permits survey data, CRM data and behavioural web tracking data to be linked together. Linking these data sources has certainly given Kantar Media some exciting opportunities to measure, profile and segment multi-platform audiences.

Data fusion offers a cost-effective means of augmenting the profiling and targeting information held in such databases. A segmentation built on the basis of the behavioural patterns of usage of a website, for example, becomes immeasurably more powerful when enriched via data fusion with a full palette of media and marketing variables.

3. Inventive efficiency

The final theme is in tune with our environmentally-conscious time. It is about reducing waste and extracting the maximum value from our available resources. These are just a few examples of inventive efficiency in practice:

• Use your proprietary research panels to develop a mutually rewarding dialogue with your audience. Build your own single source database over time. With the right planning, you should be able to integrate it with sources such as your customer database and web analytics data.

• Employ mixed mode data collection to reconcile divergent respondent needs/preferences, rather than attempting a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

• Hybrid qual/quant approaches, where executed with a proper understanding, offer enhanced diagnostics to bring your data to life.

• Although they have limitations, social media are a cost-effective way to get in-touch with your audience directly. Online communities can be harnessed for new product development, and idea generation. They also provide a means for people to feedback to your organisation, although this means taking the bad as well as the good!

• There are powerful cost and waste reduction arguments in favour of re-contact surveys. Especially where opportunities exist to re-contact individuals for whom we already hold single-source media and marketing data. Re-contact surveys are a cost-effective means of drilling down into a niche market. They are also useful for accumulating an extra layer of diagnostics to illustrate a broad market segmentation.

When times are tough, audience insights are more valuable than ever. These are just some ideas that may spark that extra bit of inspiration that makes even a reduced budget create a substantial impact within a business.