MRF announces release of updated Amps 2016

This should come as great news to marketers and their agencies, since the release of the final Amps survey for the full 2015 year, brand owners and media agencies have not had single source data that relates to current population figures. This has resulted in media planning based on a snapshot of the South African market as it was two years ago.

Following the support from a significant number of South Africa's top advertisers for a new subscription based replacement for Amps, the MRF has been hard at work preparing for the replacement for Amps – to be called Maps – to be available from mid-2018. In parallel with that work, the MRF decided to commission an update to the final Amps survey, reweighting the datafiles to the most current 2016 population estimates as provided by IHS, which had traditionally provided the annual population estimates for the Amps releases. This bridge between Amps and Maps is available to marketers and agencies free of charge.

The new Maps survey will build on the legacy of Amps, but with an enhanced consumer based product and brand focus. It will be a fully national single source study built and controlled by marketers, independent of any research house or media owner interests. It will also contain exciting additional elements that will give marketers deeper insights into consumer attitudes and behaviour towards brands, and powerfully enhanced segmentation based on marketers needs.

Three-year data gap for marketers

With the demise of Amps, and Maps only being released in 2018, there would be a three-year data gap for marketers. The 2016 population updated Amps thus provides something of a bridge as an interim measure leading to the first release of Maps. It gives a clearer picture of population shifts, and brings the Amps data more in line with current media currency data. This update will also result in Maps data with more stable population shifts than would have been the case after a 3-year period.

The application of the 2016 year-end population update to the 2015 Amps (which was based on 2015 mid-year statistics) results in an 18-month period between population updates, and population shifts are thus indeed larger than previously seen. This new release reveals a 4.0% increase in the Amps Universe of 15+. The population has grown by 1,519,000 adults from 38,259,000 to 39,778,000. Users should note that changes in market shares therefore only reflect the trended updated population, and are not real brand movements, as the base survey data is obviously unchanged.

The Amps 2016 update is available with immediate effect from the usual market research software houses. Brands that have not yet indicated their interest in the new Maps survey are invited to do so by emailing the MRF on az.oc.asfrm@frm.