When the dust settles down…!

Last week the IRS data, (world's largest media syndicated study), for the 2nd round of 2008 finding was released, and within hours of the release, there were frantic calls across media organizations, to the MRUC and Hansa office! Everyone wanted to talk/ask/debate was on “How can Average Issue Readership (AIR), which has been a industry currency for so long, be replaced by Total readership (TR), all of a sudden? How can the Press readership metrics change in an abrupt fashion?”…so on, in almost similar veins.

After the clarifications issued by the concerned parties, the three key takeouts, from those clarifications, seemed to be:

AIR and TR are both reported in the R2 findings.

Only difference was that in the previous rounds data, analysing at a Media Reach levels, other media always used to rely on Reach reported from all the possible vehicles but Press used to report Reach for the medium only from the titles covered in the study.

TR is slightly different from Claimed readership (CR), to the extent that while CR is a measurement metric to judge the loyal and irregular readers at a title level, TR measures the sum (Gross) total of everyone who has claimed to have read any Print title/vehicle. This brings the Reach of Press in parity with other media.

At individual planning/title specific readership metric will still continue to report and analyse on the AIR. Only difference now, is that the software in the initial front end will show the TR, and then subsequently when the planner starts building the plans, AIR will be the metric it will be measured on. This would encourage the Planner to go beyond the initial run of the system.

The above really doesn’t change the planners’ life to a great extent. While previously we hardly ever looked at the CR metric, now it forces the Media professionals, to consider the TR as an important measurement to judge the efficacy of Print in general. While retaining the base of AIR as the most key attribute to measure individual titles on.

Therefore the Media professionals need to still operate on the regular metrics of AIR, to plan, buy and perform the analysis on, but TR allows the medium to be measured in the same base as other media.

Other key attributes of the R2 findings, which have been snowed under by the above issue, which we might like to point out is the higher time spent reading the print vehicle.

While this is definitely good news for the publishers, but we must remember the time spent on individual page/s would have most definitely reduced.

Common sense tells us that with the given volume of an average daily or a magazine going up in the last 4-5 years, through increased paginations, sectional/supplement pullouts etc, there is definitely a “pick- and- choose- the- favourite- sections” factor operating here.

Which brings us to the question on the data on Sectional readership, this ideally should be used with the AIR of the overall title, and decide on the relevant placement of the communication, basis the brand’s target audience. This would at least kick start the thinking on how to sharp-focus on our audience, even on a large & mass based Daily.

We, in our organization , do believe that the time has come for us to move away from Media plans and schedules, to Contact plans and creating engagements.

We need to follow the consumer wherever he goes, whether it’s ATL vs. BTL, classical vs. new media etc… are not even debating points anymore.

We are into the business of building connections with consumers, and engaging them, it doesn’t matter on the format of the communication.





Have Faith ; Rewards will follow...