NewsLine Column: NRS And The Black Art Of Media Planning

Last month the National Readership Survey released new data showing the length of time taken by titles to accumulate readers. James Papworth, ad marketing manager at IPC Prospector, explains how this will help to transform the ‘black art’ of media planning in magazines…

Much of advertising is built around what is legally termed the ‘mere puff’. It’s a lovely, emotive phrase isn’t it? Strange then that it should have been coined by contract lawyers, but it refers to the legal concept of ‘puffery’. The art of self-evident exaggeration of a thing’s properties to attract the attention of prospective customers.

For example Coca Cola long claimed to be ‘the real thing’, Denim was ‘for the man who doesn’t have to try too hard’ and Bounty was ‘the taste of paradise’. Hard to prove either way I imagine, in a court of law.

‘Puffery’ is really the domain of the agency creative/copy writing department, helped along by account planning. In media departments we like things to be a bit more concrete. In keeping with the advertising phrases theme, we like stuff that ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’.

So when the new NRS Readership Accumulation Survey was published we were happy because the NRS Readership Accumulation Survey is a survey of readership accumulation.

Accumulate: from the Latin accumulare: ,ad – + cumul re, meaning to pile up (from cumulus, heap; see keu – in Indo-European roots). To gather v. intr to mount up; increase.

Readership Accumulation (RAS) is the measure of the time interval from when a publication is first available to readers to when they first read it. In short, how long it takes for all those readers who will ever read a title (no matter how many times) to have read it, once.

All those readers who will ever read a title is well documented, it’s the NRS’ Average Issue Readership figure, that’s been around for years. What the NRS have provided media planners with now is when that first pick-up occurs i.e. a 1+ coverage curve for every title on the NRS survey.

The coverage builds are available by week and month, and as coverage is in percentages of a population, it can also be reported as weekly or monthly ratings. This in turn can be fed back into the planning process, correlated with sales and awareness tracking data and help identify the sensitivity market/customer behaviour to press advertising. Much the same way as TV has been done for years.

It should be said that 1+ readership of a newspaper or magazine does not necessarily mean 1+ exposure to any particular advert therein. That may take place on the second or third or fourth pick up. No one knows for sure.

However, it’s the same for all media. The average television advert has, at best, around 50% of viewers properly watching it, radio ads usually run ‘in the background’ and press titles are often flicked through. But the viewing process, the listening process or the reading process is not at fault if an advert is not seen, or fully attended to, at the first opportunity.

It is up to the alchemy of advertising and the black art of media planning to best facilitate that. A compelling message from account planning (even if it’s a mere puff), eye-catching and attention-holding copy from creatives and well placed media choices from planners and buyers.

In the olden days alchemy involved ‘eye of newt’ and ‘tongue of bat’. These days, the advertising version still involves a bit of that, but mixed with it are robust measurement studies and plenty of research data. For those advertisers at all interested in using print advertising, knowing better when the first chance occurs for all their agency’s hard work to be appreciated is a planning bonus.

Aside from all the media benefits of planning weekly/monthly press ratings I imagine there will be knock on considerations for marketing departments too – POS activity, distribution levels, call-centre staffing rotas, coupon redemption levels, postage and packaging costs.

So there you have it. “NRS RAS can help media agencies plan media”. Mere puff?

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