Tracking your brand among the youth

The tracking tool makes use of seventeen magazines' survey panel of 4 200 girls, known as UrbanScoutsT, who complete monthly online surveys for the magazine.

Says 8 Ink Media MD Sam Sneddon: "The Youth Brand Index was developed in order to address advertiser demands for independent feedback on the success of print campaigns - a request certainly not limited to our titles, but increasingly demanded of print as a media choice.

"Essentially the YBI allows a brand or advertising client to monitor how their brand is doing in the eyes of seventeen readers over a period of time or over a campaign period. A survey is mailed to our panel on a monthly basis and an index created to determine how that brand is faring in terms of awareness, availability and price (each of these criterion being weighted).

"Each month we are able to determine whether a brand or product has improved on, or deviated from, its basic index reading and also to analyse whether this movement is the result of an advertising campaign, or attributable to other factors."

According to Sneddon, regular advertisers in seventeen - that is, advertisers in nine or more of the eleven issues published each year - automatically qualify for participation in the index and will receive feedback on how their brands are doing.

Detailed brand tracking, making use of the YBI methodology, is also available to interested parties on a project basis.