The Future of Media Planning is Integrated

As the representative organisation for newspaper publishers, NNI focuses on promoting an environment that encourages advertisers to invest in newspapers.

However, we are aware that for most advertisers, newspapers are just one important part of the media mix that they employ.

We believe that an environment that makes it easier for advertisers and their agency partners to assess the value of specific media to particular strategies will lead to more effective investments and better quality campaigns.

NNI’s Involvement with Process to Integrate Research

In recent months we have been engaging with a process to explore the potential to integrate media research and create a multi media planning tool. If this could be brought to fruition it would mean that advertisers and planners could, within one platform, establish the total reach of their investment in advertising.

Over recent months, NNI has researched how this could be achieved in the Irish market through meetings with suppliers such as Telmar, Kantar, RSMB, our colleagues internationally and domestic colleagues in other sectors of the industry.

IAPI is kindly co-ordinating the contributions of the various stakeholders to the process.

Integration Options

Two of the options that could enable the Irish market to achieve media research integration are data fusion and multibasing.

Fusion is the approach used to produce Touchpoints in the UK. Touchpoints utilises a “hub” survey to establish hooks or links between individual respondents in various media surveys. The hooks enable data from a participant in one research study to be fused with data from participants in other research based on factors including demographics, media consumption and other behavioural indicators.

This method of data integration is considered to be the “gold standard” however; it requires the creation of a new “hub” survey and the fusion of data, both of which are time consuming and expensive processes.

An alternative method that has been suggested takes a ‘multibasing’ approach, which maintains the data separately and models the results.

This solution is software powered and does not call for the creation of a hub survey, or for fusion of data to be undertaken.

In all cases, the individual pieces of media research involved in the integration project (of which the JNRS is one) will remain independent and will be managed by their own Joint Industry Committees (JICs).

Looking to 2014

To date, the project has progressed to the point that an international expert in the area of data integration, Katherine Page, has been engaged to study the Irish situation and produce a tender document. Page will study all options available to the Irish market to bring about the integration of research.

There is a lot more work to be done before multimedia integration can be achieved but the process is moving forward and we expect this to continue in 2014.

We will continue to engage enthusiastically with this project and will update our members as this develops.