'Granularity' system aims to strengthen magazines in marketing models

Marketing Mix Modelling refers to the use of statistical analyses to determine the impact that individual advertising media have on sales. Granularity is a Web-based portal that leverages the data resources of GfK MRI's Audience Accumulation Study, Issue Specific Readership Study and Market-by-Market Study to fill the need for quality magazine inputs for marketing mix modellers.

Disadvantaged

"Magazine readership has long been disadvantaged compared to other media in marketing mix models, mainly because optimal magazine data have been unavailable--until now," said Kathi Love, president of GfK MRI. "Modellers tend to work with weekly sales data at a local level.

Optimal magazine inputs, therefore, include weekly issue-specific readership on a local market basis and information on how a specific magazine issue's audience builds over time. Granularity offers this level of detail."

In a March 2010 Magazine Publishers of America white paper entitled Marketing Mix Modeling and Media Inputs, Association of National Advertisers' President and CEO Bob Liodice said: "Improving marketing mix models is essential for enhancing integrated marketing effectiveness. As the media landscape proliferates, data precision is critical to insure the growth in marketing mix quality and reliability."

GfK MRI announced the beta launch of Granularity in December 2009. The launch was preceded by extensive research into the field of marketing mix modelling, revealing:

• Between 60% and 70% of US advertisers use marketing mix models for allocating media budgets.
  
• Magazines have traditionally been represented in models via broad average audience estimates and national gross rating points, both of which are imprecise measures of the impact of specific advertising campaigns.
  
• Providing modellers with weekly, local audience estimates most accurately represents the contribution to sales generated by magazine advertising.

In addition to providing more accurate data, the use of Granularity greatly reduces the manpower needed to generate magazine audience data for insertion into marketing mix models. In one step, agencies and modellers are able to extract insertion schedules from their media systems, feed the schedules into the online Granularity portal, specify the desired output criteria (time periods, markets, demographics) and download model-ready data.

Marketing mix modelling firms can use the Granularity Web portal free of charge. Their advertiser clients must purchase a license for the GfK MRI data used in the Granularity system.

About GfK MRI

GfK MRI has a singular goal: to provide the clearest and most detailed view of American consumers - who they are, what they buy, how they think, and the best ways to reach them. Founded in 1979, GfK MRI is one of the country's leading providers of magazine audience ratings, multimedia research data and penetrating insights into consumers' behaviour and motivations.

When conducting its national Survey of the American consumer, GfK MRI interviews approximately 26 000 US adults in their homes each year, asking about their use of media, their consumption of more than 6000 products in 550 categories, their lifestyles and their attitudes. Because these interviews are structured as an area probability study, the results are claimed to be projectable to the entire US adult population. The survey also serves as a foundation for an array of GfK MRI research products that answer the market's need for granular, cross-media and consumer-focused information.

GfK MRI is part of The GfK Group, based in Nuremberg, Germany.