SAARF Symposium reveals future media research challenges, and examines exciting new methodologies

On top of a number of eminent South African speakers, the symposium also drew the support of media research experts from the UK and US, who flew out to address delegates.

"Media research is such a vital part of the advertising, media and marketing industries," says Dr Paul Haupt, MD of SAARF. "It is important that we all remain in touch with the latest trends in this field, especially as the media environment becomes more fragmented, and thus more challenging to measure. Our annual symposia are a means of informing SAARF's various stakeholders of the changes and advances which could affect media research in the not too distant future."
Some of the highlights of the day included the Wally Langschmidt Memorial Address, given by Shiela Byfield, head of consumer insight at Mindshare Worldwide in the UK.

Byfield took an indepth look at the media, in an attempt to predict which would survive into the future. She concluded that all would survive, but not necessarily as we know them today.

For instance, she felt TV would remain popular, but could well become another source of "background sound", not occupying the sole attention of viewers from the new, multitasking generation. It could also move from the social environs of the sitting room, to the computer room, where multitasking young people would surf the net, while watching TV in a window on their computer screen.

Byfield commented that today's young people are heavy media users, but are unlikely to just take on the media habits of their parents, such as 'graduating' to newspapers.

These changing media habits would have an impact not only on the media themselves, but on marketers trying to reach their markets, as well as researchers, who would need to find ways of measuring new media usage (such as watching TV online, instead of through a TV set).
A new way of measuring outdoor exposure?

Paul Donato, senior vice president and chief research officer of Nielsen Media Research in the US, looked at whether electronic outdoor measurement could work in Africa.

This is an important issue for South Africa, as a great deal of the population does not have access to all other media. As the last of the true mass media, outdoor plays a vital role in communicating brand messages on the continent.

The goal is to create a passive electronic research tool to measure exposure to outdoor. This will produce the same kind of planning-rich data which the industry currently enjoys through SAARF's AMPS, RAMS and TAMS, and will allow outdoor media owners to operate within the common currency.

Previous attempts by researchers to measure outdoor electronically however, have not resulted in a great deal of success. These attempts included placing cameras on hoardings and filming the passing traffic. Researchers would then play back the film and tote up the number of people in the cars. Another attempt was made with 'virtual reality helmets', which filmed whatever the wearer saw. Both methods proved impractical however, and produced unrealistic noting scores.
Nielsen too tried to measure this medium electronically, piloting a transmitter/locator system, which fitted sites with transmitters. Tags carried by respondents would pick up these signals as they passed by. This method also proved impractical, as it was impossible to outfit all forms of outdoor media.

Donato says that the next step is to test person based measurement, a methodology which appears to be far more effective and practical. In a joint SA/US test beginning in November, a pilot sample will be equipped with a car-based GPS unit, which will be placed in respondents' car boots. This unit will collect position, time, speed and direction information, which is then applied to mapping software. The GPS locations of outdoor signage will then be overlaid.
At present, only commuters with their own cars will be sampled. The technology is almost at the point however, where it can be carried by individuals, thus allowing the capture of pedestrians, taxi and train commuters' exposure to outdoor.

Respondents in the pilot sample will be drawn from the Sandton and Randburg areas, but sites across Joburg will be measured.

Should this methodology be approved and adopted by SAARF, samples of 2 500-2 800 will be drawn from AMPS, and will cover the entire country every three years. The proposed start of electronic outdoor measurement is AMPS 2003B, with 1 200-1 400 respondents.

Is electronic measurement the answer for electronic media?

Jay Guyther, the senior vice president of Arbitron Inc in the US, revisited the ongoing hot topic of electronic measurement of radio and television audiences. Arbitron's portable people meter (PPM) is a new media research tool that makes it possible to automatically track consumers' exposure to electronic media. An inaudible code is inserted into the audio signal of radio, broadcast and cable television channels, Internet streaming sites, and other media outlets. These codes are then passively recorded by pager-sized portable people meters worn by respondents.
Arbitron launched the first full-scale market trial of the PPM system in Philadelphia in April 2002. It has emerged from these trials that people have shown good compliance in keeping the meters with them from when they get up, to when they go to bed - around 15 hours, 23 minutes per day. Even children aged 6-11 wore the meters for more than 13 hours each day.

As far as the actual results are concerned, the electronic meters provide much more information and detail for radio and television than the self-reported diary or face-to-face interview method can. Compared to the diary method, the passive nature of the PPM makes it more likely to capture short-duration listening events, such as station hopping in the car. It is also more likely to capture infrequently tuned stations, which are events that diary-keepers may forget or find burdensome to record. Evidence of this was seen in the trial results. An average of 2.9 stations per week were reported by the diary, while the PPMs recorded an average of 6.5 different stations.

Another type of diary reporting error that PPM measurement largely eliminates is the "rounding" of durations. For example, if someone listens to the radio from 8:12am to 9:05am, they may report this in their diary as "8-9am". The PPM however, records the actual times. Thus, while nearly half of the diary entries in the trial began at the top of the hour, and 28% started on the half-hour, the distribution with PPM was virtually even around the clock.

On the whole though, the PPMs consistently reported average quarter-hour ratings equivalent to those reported by the diary. Interestingly, they also consistently reported higher average daily reach, consistent with more stations and more short duration events being reported. The average reach daily rating reported by the PPM methodology ranges from 10 to 14 points higher than that reported in the diary. Guyther noted that radio is usually marketed as a frequency medium, but the PPM pilot shows that it could just as well be marketed as a reach medium.

On the TV side, there was a 38% increase in viewing, as the PPMs capture out-of-home viewing. Viewing trends remained the same, but the levels were higher.

Canada is now adopting this technology, and tests are beginning in the UK and France, and spreading. SAARF continues to watch the progress of this technology, for possible adoption in SA in the future should this prove feasible.

The next big leap forward in readership research?

Roger Gane, the managing director of Media Research at Ipsos-RSL in the UK, reported on the progress being made in implementing what could well be the next big leap forward in readership research - so-called 'double-screen' Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI).

Ipsos-RSL is responsible for the National Readership Survey (NRS) in the UK, the first industry survey to use CAPI. Initially, the NRS used so-called 'single-screen' CAPI, which is also used by SAARF. This methodology utilises one laptop, which shows the question to the interviewer, while prompting him or her to show the respondent the hard copy showcard.

With the 'double-screen' CAPI methodology however, which Ipsos-RSL is investigating, the interviewer's laptop is equipped with a second screen, which faces the respondent. The prompt material is shown electronically to the respondent, at the same time as the question appears on the interviewer's screen.

This new methodology significantly improves the quality of the results, because it helps to reduce respondent fatigue. Currently, the very thick showcard ringbinder is quite daunting when placed before the respondent. With the double-screen methodology, respondents don't know how much longer the questionnaire is, and the use of the second screen provides a degree of interest. This methodology also eliminates any possibility of the interviewer's making a mistake by showing the wrong card with a question.

"While SAARF is one of only a few countries using CAPI, more and more are beginning to experiment with it," says Haupt. "The Germans, for instance, are investigating the possibility of introducing a 'touch screen' method, or Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing (CASI). One of the problems they report, however, is that while respondents may enjoy answering the questions themselves by touching the screen, the interviewers get bored during the process because they are basically redundant once they have set up the laptop."

Problems aside however, as this and other presentations at SAARF's Third One-day Media Research Symposium showed, media research is not standing still. Haupt concludes: "Great advances are being made, and new methodologies are being vigorously tested, to ensure that ad practitioners, marketers and media owners can stay ahead in the maelstrom of change which is today's media environment."