MRG 2013: Sue Unerman calls for research to get to the truth

Sue Unerman, CSO of Mediacom, provided the keynote address at yesterday’s Media Research Group conference to start proceedings, with a positive take on the importance of media research.

She feels that the most successful media research comes from when people have a hunch then use data to back it up and take appropriate action. Citing an early example from her career of a campaign for Rennie, she explained how the strategy was adapted over a simple thought to speak to people when they were most likely to be experiencing indigestion.

The subsequent research showed that this varied regionally, and so a new regional TV buying strategy was implemented which proved more cost effective and boasted a 15% increase in sales.

Ten years ago Sue made a plea to the industry for cross platform measurement, and although she concedes that things have improved over that time, she still feels there is valuable progress to be made. A key client at Mediacom was quoted as saying that cross platform measurement in the UK is lagging behind other territories, but that TV platform measurement is perceived to be ahead.

She considered how this measurement can be achieved and suggested that rather than whizzing all research together in a “smoothie” style approach, the reality is that a layered approach is required and she called on the industry to make further inroads in making data comparable.

Stating that great media research tells stories about people’s lives and not just their media habits, she suggests keeping this in mind while focussing on a return on media investment, not just ratings by platform.