A million years ago (last Tuesday) I got a job at the ad agency Davidson Pearce as a media research executive. I had had jobs before (as an ad agency messenger, a research assistant at Southern TV and as a market research junior at a client) but the media research role for me turned out to be a bit of a breakthrough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
It was all rather odd; I had failed Maths O-Level, hadn\u2019t gone to university and yet somehow I found myself spending all day looking at numbers and having my opinions listened to on industry committees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I decided to \u2018specialise\u2019 in radio audience measurement on the basis that the total number of people in the entire industry who knew anything about it was, shall we say \u2018few\u2019 \u2013 and none of them worked in ad agencies. Getting the gig to represent the agencies on what was then JICRAR, now RAJAR was a cinch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find myself reflecting on the whole topic of audience measurement ahead of the annual asi video and audio research event, taking place as usual the first week of November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today of course there are qualified experts everywhere, on everything. I am not sure enthusiastic amateurs like me would have made much of an impact today, as opposed to back when in the land of the blind the one-eyed man was king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What attracted me to audience measurement in the first place was not so much the techniques, the formulas, the theories but more a sense of curiosity. I loved ads, and was curious to know how they worked, and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believed that understanding a little about who had seen them might be helpful as a step along the way to understanding how they worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still think that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know and understand that audience measurement has many uses \u2013 not least in editorial creation and in commissioning and scheduling. I once got into a scrape with BARB for using the data I had bought to advise an independent production company on negotiating their show\u2019s place in the schedule, as part of the process of having the show commissioned by a broadcaster. I do get that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But within the ad world we can become myopic on all sorts of topics \u2013 and audience measurement is one such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the industry starts to \u2018gather\u2019 (virtually of course) for the asi event I would encourage everyone to lift their eyes and raise their ambitions. Start by appreciating the bigger picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researching audiences is an important role. After all, if your bricks are sub-standard your house will fall down \u2013 audience measurement is an important brick, and the fact that most people in this industry don\u2019t spend their time looking at bricks doesn\u2019t lessen their importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you buy a house, you buy more than a collection of great bricks. You buy a structure, one that is fit for purpose and meets your needs. By doing so you\u2019re not arguing to stop the brick-improvement programme. The fact you don\u2019t know about brick R&D doesn\u2019t mean that such work is not essential; it\u2019s just that better bricks make for better houses, and it\u2019s better houses that people want, need and buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our industry needs a better house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are poor at understanding how commercial communication works \u2013 maybe not as poor as we once were (at least we now talk of communication rather than ads) but we\u2019re still pretty poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are poor at building plans across all communication channels, at seeing how PR adds to advertising, how experiential can work alongside sponsorships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can\u2019t even agree on the words we use, the definitions. We can\u2019t sort-out how best to bring together the various strands within video measurement (although kudos to ISBA for at least starting to tackle that thorny topic).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words we\u2019re still faffing about with the bricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We lack a vision, an architect. Unless we\u2019re careful we\u2019ll end up with a pile of great bricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We won\u2019t even have a Tower of Babel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A million years ago (last Tuesday) I got a job at the ad agency Davidson Pearce as a media research executive. I had had jobs before (as an ad agency messenger, a research assistant at Southern TV and as a market research junior at a client) but the media research role for me turned out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}