A NEW RATINGS MODEL

For Better TV Data, Add to Nielsen. Don’t Try to Replace Them.

By Erwin Ephron

Our industry-wide discomfort with the short-comings of the Nielsen ratings has made us angry, but attempting to replace Nielsen won’t solve the TV measurement problem.

First, it is unlikely that anyone will accept the invitation. Too many wannabe’s have lost too much money trying. Arbitron, AGB, SMART. Then, when it comes to media currencies, stability, familiarity and confidence that the system is relatively fair are more important than better meters, better editing and better access.

Anyway, that’s all housekeeping not innovation. To innovate, what we measure and report has to be more important than how we measure and report it.

If we’re looking for innovation it will not come from the currency measurement provider. Changes there always raise questions of “to whose advantage.” That’s one reason why all currency measurements, be they Nielsen TV, MRI Print or Arbitron Radio, change very slowly.

No, innovation requires a stranger.

Layer New Research

There is a better research model for improving television data. Add to Nielsen. Don’t replace them. No need to change the currency, layer new research on top of it. Outdoor is a prime example of how this can work.

The currency measure for Outdoor is traffic counts called DEC’s. Because of the peripheral nature of Outdoor exposure (one element in the person’s field-of-view), these conventional measures of people driving-by overstate people actually seeing a billboard.

To correct the DEC currency for “likelihood of seeing” the ad, the industry is researching how consumers interact with Outdoor. The variables are things like the size of the display, its position on the road, the complexity of the visual environment, and so on. This research will enable Outdoor to adjust its audience counts for the likelihood that the advertising is seen.

The key point is these “likely to see” values do not require a change in the Outdoor currency measurement. They are an independent adjustment layered on top of it to produce more realistic estimates of people seeing the advertising.

The same kinds of adjustments for television can be developed by independent suppliers and layered on top of the Nielsen data to produce better estimates of people seeing commercials.

Carrying it further, think of pod length, location of set, presence of others in the room, presence of children in the room, time-of-day, program type. All of these are recorded by Nielsen. And all of these attributes of viewing affect whether a commercial will be seen. We just need independent measurements, like Outdoor’s VAI, to establish by how much.

But there is a major problem in doing this VAI-type research. Unlike Outdoor, where sellers see better data as an engine for growth, TV sellers see it as a threat. That’s why advertisers need to set the research priorities for advertising.

The Golden Rule

My late ex-partner, Dick Raboy had a sign on his office wall. It read, “The Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.” This certainly applies to the ratings where he who puts up the money determines what we get to know.

We know audience data no longer tells advertisers what they need to know to plan and buy media intelligently. Viewer, reader and listener counts substantially overstate the number of people who see the advertising the media are paid to carry. Yet we don’t get to know those numbers.

A comprehensive analysis done in Canada estimated the loss from “media audience” to “probably sees the average ad”, ranges from -10 to -50 percent. But there seems to be very little interest in producing similar data here because advertisers don’t set the priorities for advertising research.

I Gave at the Office

Think about the structural problem. Only the media spend substantial discretionary research dollars (e.g., dollars in addition to the Nielsen bill), so only the media decide where to spend them. They opt to fund the search for bigger audiences like those away-from-home and on-campus. They are not interested in researching who actually watches commercials. Would you be?

Agencies, working at Procurement Department negotiated rates, are hard-pressed to pay for Nielsen.

Advertisers, who pay for it all, are curiously disengaged. They gave at the office. Their position is their contribution to ratings research is in the CPM’s they pay. But that funding model steals their right to vote. They’re even dragging their feet on Apollo.

Like Dick Raboy, Harry Truman had a sign in his office. It said “the buck stops here.” It does. And we need better measures of why we’re spending it.

- April 1, 2005 -

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