ARF: The future is now, but measurement is yesterday

The media world is changing rapidly but media measurement is not keeping pace. That's the consensus of users of syndicated audience research data in the U.S. who were surveyed earlier this year by the New York-based Advertising Research Foundation (ARF, arfsite.org.) The organization issued the results in a report called Accountability of Audience Measurement: A Survey of Industry Concerns Regarding Media Measurement Services.
The survey looked at online, print, radio and television and posed as its key question: 'What are the top three issues or concerns that you have about your current measurement service(s) which reflect things they are not doing - or doing inadequately?'
For each of the four media, the top three issues were:
ß The lack of adaptability of the current measurement tools to meet changing media and planning needs.
ß Sample quality.
ß Sample size and sample representativeness.
Respondents also commented about difficulties in integrating data from the various measurement data.
Other online measurement issues included the opinion that online metrics fall short of a currency because they lack demographically defined audiences and the ability to reliably accumulate those over standard time periods.
Print measurement drew comments about the limitation of the current survey methods, that not enough magazines are measured and the number of measures for each magazine is inadequate. In addition, agency researchers and planners want to reduce the time required to get product and brand definitions updated in the syndicated surveys.
Radio diaries were said to be relics of the past and a flawed, outdated methodology. Respondents believe that the PPM would offer greater consistency and comparability across time and media.
Television measurement received the most comments, primarily that the ratings provider (Nielsen Media Research in the U.S.) needs to resolve problems more promptly and be much faster to address the pace of change in TV technology. Respondents felt that out-of-home TV viewing was not measured adequately and that there was a need for commercial ratings instead of program segment ratings.
The ARF will be exploring the audience measurement further with a forum Sept. 29 during Advertising Week in New York.
By Staff 
September 1, 2005

The media world is changing rapidly but media measurement is not keeping pace. That’s the consensus of users of syndicated audience research data in the U.S. who were surveyed earlier this year by the New York-based Advertising Research Foundation (ARF, arfsite.org.) The organization issued the results in a report called Accountability of Audience Measurement: A Survey of Industry Concerns Regarding Media Measurement Services.

The survey looked at online, print, radio and television and posed as its key question: ‘What are the top three issues or concerns that you have about your current measurement service(s) which reflect things they are not doing – or doing inadequately?’

For each of the four media, the top three issues were:

ß The lack of adaptability of the current measurement tools to meet changing media and planning needs.

ß Sample quality.

ß Sample size and sample representativeness.

Respondents also commented about difficulties in integrating data from the various measurement data.

Other online measurement issues included the opinion that online metrics fall short of a currency because they lack demographically defined audiences and the ability to reliably accumulate those over standard time periods.

Print measurement drew comments about the limitation of the current survey methods, that not enough magazines are measured and the number of measures for each magazine is inadequate. In addition, agency researchers and planners want to reduce the time required to get product and brand definitions updated in the syndicated surveys.

Radio diaries were said to be relics of the past and a flawed, outdated methodology. Respondents believe that the PPM would offer greater consistency and comparability across time and media.

Television measurement received the most comments, primarily that the ratings provider (Nielsen Media Research in the U.S.) needs to resolve problems more promptly and be much faster to address the pace of change in TV technology. Respondents felt that out-of-home TV viewing was not measured adequately and that there was a need for commercial ratings instead of program segment ratings.

The ARF will be exploring the audience measurement further with a forum Sept. 29 during Advertising Week in New York.