Publisher Research Council sets research programme for 2017

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Created to meet the needs of fast changing reading behaviour, across both traditional and digital reading platforms, and to provide an innovative ‘Gold Standard’ Reader Audience Measurement, founded on global and local best practice, expertise and resources, it conducts audience and efficacy research on behalf of members, while providing research on broader media audiences for advertisers and their agencies.

“This year heralds a new dawn of media research in South Africa,” says Peter Langschmidt, GM of the PRC. “After 40 years of a single source AMPS, the industry is moving to the global model of a hub establishment survey (ES) with linked donor currency surveys, with the PRC as an integral spoke.”

“‘Read to Remember’, the PRC slogan, stresses our commitment to researching and better understanding of both the quality and quantity of our audiences - we will get closer to understanding how reading facilitates learning and brand recall better than any other medium.”

Upcoming research this year includes Media Synergy, which combines Nielsen Adex data with the GFK consumer scanner panel sales of 3 000 representative South African shoppers. This clearly shows that when including print and online in a schedule the actual sales ROI per rand spent is better than TV or radio.

Other surveys for 2017 include Brand Mapp from WhyFive and Media View by TNS Kantar, which will examine the inherent strengths of reading vs other media due for release in April.

PAMS to be released in September

Its major study for 2017 will be PAMS, a new reading currency survey in South Africa, conducted by Nielsen, incorporating global best practice, due for release in September.

Based along the lines of similar panels such as PAMCO in the UK and EMMA in Australia, the PRC will begin development of its own panel in 2017. This mobile panel is envisaged to reach around 16,000 respondents in year one. Results will be calibrated and validated against the traditional PAMS face-to-face methodology before release.

“Publishers have accepted the need to move away from measuring exposure to paper, towards measuring platform-agnostic reading behaviour, which can be seen in the ES and PAMS reading questions. Most of our research will closely follow the release of the two waves of the ES 2017.

“We will ensure the most complete measurement of reader audiences, across all platforms, to support effective advertising investment, unlike in the past, when reader research provided advertisers with only the numbers. In 2017, the PRC will be releasing six different studies that provide the audience numbers; but in addition, many other measures like perception, trust, multiple exposures, brand awareness and recall, and actual ROI per rand spent,” concludes Langschmidt.

The PRC website has been designed to become a resource for everything reading related, including all primary research resources, white papers, international discussions and best practice. For more information, go to www.prc.za.com.