It may seem an odd time to praise the research industry. After all, when it came to the two most significant public votes this year (the EU Referendum here and the US Presidential Election there), the market research industry managed to call both wrong. It\u2019s hardly that they were even multiple choice, both were in effect \u2018yes\u2019\/\u2018no\u2019 questions.<\/p>\n
For several weeks, back in June the British press was full of polls on whether we were staying or going. My American friends were bombarded by polls, and experts interpreting the polls on what the nation\u2019s voters were thinking about the two very different options open to them.<\/p>\n
And in both cases most pollsters, and most experts got it wrong.<\/p>\n
The audience measurement end of the market research world has always seemed to me to be something of a poor relation. Heaven knows The MRS, ESOMAR and The ARF are hardly organisations to set the pulses racing, yet even they appear to look down upon their media cousins.<\/p>\n
And yet two recent examples indicate that the media research world is vibrant, and is indeed well on the way to tackling the many measurement issues facing a complicated and fast-changing set of challenges.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, at the annual asi TV and Radio Conference in Budapest, the major audience measurement businesses, the likes of Nielsen, Kantar Media, GfK, IPSOS and Mediametrie discussed the latest technological developments within their organisations \u2013 developments designed to address a broadcasting world within which viewing takes place both when and where the individual wants it to, and on whatever device he or she chooses.<\/p>\n
There was talk of passive measurement techniques, like watches, and of the full integration of any number of datasets to bring the principles of big data analytics to bear on helping users understand the viewing and listening landscape.<\/p>\n
The research companies\u2019 clients \u2013 the broadcasters and the joint industry bodies \u2013 demonstrated how they are managing to juggle the need to adapt and evolve, with the commercial requirement for consistent, predictable, industry-acceptable data.<\/p>\n
Not an easy trick to pull off.<\/p>\n
Right now judging is well underway in the annual Mediatel Media Research Awards. There have been over 70 entries, from all sorts of quarters \u2013 media agencies, trade bodies, research companies, broadcasters, publishers, and out-of-home businesses among them.<\/p>\n
The results won\u2019t be announced until next year, but it\u2019s not breaking any confidences to say that the quality of entries is higher than ever, and the range of techniques and approaches used startlingly wide.<\/p>\n
The media industry, and more specifically those not directly involved in how we measure what we need to measure is very quick to criticise the trade bodies, and the media research world in general.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the use of samples when we have universe data, cry the digiterati.<\/p>\n
And yet the data emerging from trade bodies\u2019 and from individual media organisations\u2019 samples, and the evolution underway at those research companies involved in measuring audiences in one shape or form stack up pretty well against the disarray in online audience measurement<\/p>\n
Working hard towards an industry-wide consensus, developing, discussing and sharing has a lot going for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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