From Survey To Server

When you look at the shape of most media plans, they all look remarkably similar. This is largely because media choice is led by what data are most available. And by what data planners are most comfortable with.

But there is a fundamental change taking place with regard to 'media' data, in line with the changes taking place as a result of the new digital world. The sort of data we are most comfortable with as planners and strategists are gold standard media currencies. These are long established, committee led, peer-reviewed, stable (mostly), trusted sources. I'm talking BARB (TV), RAJAR (radio), NRS (print), and so on. You can also include TGI in this as it has almost become a currency in itself.

Whether they are accurate or not is another point. And to be honest it doesn't really matter that much. It's more important that they are stable, to allow trading to take place. When you lift the lid on some of these they are in fact creaking under the strain and almost quaint in the way they measure media. However, measuring media is a huge challenge and they are the best we've got (I wouldn't knock things like BARB, they are very professionally run).

However, the internet and mobile can offer a different type of data. Instead of measuring them via surveys, we are starting to see data emerge that is closer to a census, in other words just counting what happens. There has always been a discrepancy between web measurement surveys (ie Comscore, Nielsen) and server data. But these issues (around things like cookie deletion) are slowly being resolved so the two are starting to align. Comscore is now integrating the two with their web measurement and their mobile measurement is purely server based.

Of course the downside of moving from measuring the person to measuring the device is that you don't know much about the individual, or at least you have to make an educated guess.

The other problem with server data is that there is too much of it. It's bottom up, not top down. You get everything, when in fact you only want some simple metrics. And that is the stage where we are now. The data are there, but no-one has yet figured out a way to make sense of it. Interestingly, this also happened with cable TV in the UK. Everyone thought that measurement would be simple using set top box data. I remember a project with Videotron to try to make sense of their set top box data. It was killed-off as unworkable as there was too much data in too many different places. Looking back this should have come as no surprise - they couldn't even issue their customers with correct bills.

So we need to bring in some different skills to reduce this mass of data to something that a planner can use alongside the other media data they already know so well. Comparable metrics that allow a mobile app to be judged alongside a full page ad in The Times. Traditional research companies with skills in sampling and survey design might not have the ability to do this. On the other hand the tech guys don't understand what metrics are needed. Some hybrid of the two is going to be required. A sort of techy researcher - a genuine nerd.

The 'TV Is Dead' Argument is Dead

Data from Nielsen on US TV viewing puts the nail in the coffin of the TV is dying argument. Viewing in the US is up 20% in the last ten years and now stands at an all time high. Given the growth of web usage, games playing and the perceived decline in quality, how many people in 1999 would have predicted that?

Americans now spend a staggering four hours and 49 minutes a day watching the box. And this pattern is being repeated in other markets. Looking at the change in individuals viewing over the last 5 years France is up 6%, Spain up 11%, India up 7%, Brazil up 5%.

So what are the drivers? It could be the growth in choice, although households with lots of channels don’t necessarily watch more than those with a few. And as Barry Schwartz pointed out just because you can buy twenty flavours of jam doesn’t mean you eat more jam. More likely it’s the introduction of new technology such as PVRs. Most of us thought that giving viewers the power to schedule their own TV would mean that they were more selective in their viewing and therefore the amount of time they spent watching was more likely to decline than increase. We were wrong. People are now squeezing more value out of their TV’s, both in terms of content and the quality of the experience. And it will only continue with the growth of HD and then 3D.

And these viewing numbers don’t even take into account the use of new platforms such as mobile and online. Compared to viewing on a TV screen these are still tiny, but they are only going to grow as smartphone penetration increases, broadband speeds get faster and wireless technology takes hold.

So, the world loves TV more than ever.

And yet the channels are in such a pickle commercially. It’s clear now that they should have been investing all along in what people love about TV (the programmes, the talent, the shared experiences), rather than finding new and exotic ways to deliver them to people.

The C Word

Moderating focus groups is a bit like going for a bike ride. It’s not necessarily something that you look forward to with relish, but once you’ve started you’re usually glad you made the effort.

There is just no substitute for talking face to face with real punters (you can always tell which people on an account attended the groups because they speak with such authority about how real people think). However, you tend to come away with a bit of a flea in your ear about the subject of brands, ads and marketing in general. The usual take-out as you finish off their half-eaten sarnies is something like this:

a) people don’t consciously think about brands as brands, they just buy stuff they like

b) they haven’t seen your ads

c) in fact the only ads they can remember are those ones with Michael Winner about car insurance, which they hate

d) they like eating crisps

Let’s add to this list the insight that Consumers Don’t Want Any More CONTENT.

I don’t run many groups these days (I don’t go out on my bike much either) but at some recent groups exploring a territory that involved some branded content ideas it became all too obvious that one of adlands new fascinations might not be all it’s cracked up to be. The belief that ‘if people don’t want the ads anymore let’s give them more of the bits in between’ is built largely on a false assumption.

The start point for many a strategy is a place where people are hungry for content and have an unlimited appetite to consume more and more of the stuff. Therefore all you need to do is produce some content (not exactly sure what it will be, but it will be really cool), sprinkle it liberally around the web and people will seek it out, consume it and love without question whatever brand it is that attaches its logo to it.

In reality of course most people have more content than they know what to do with. Their Sky boxes are full of programmes they haven’t watched, their shelves full of books and DVDs from last Christmas that they haven’t touched, their phones give them access to hours of fun, but do they really want to watch anything decent on a screen the size of a post-it. Their Facebook pages are now full of videos and games. They don’t need or want any more content.

Charlie Brooker’s piece on this feeling of content anxiety is typically biting. Describing how he bought a book for the second time, forgetting that he had it already, he said that he now “hadn’t read it twice”. Read it here – if you have the time of course.

Remarkable content will always rise to the top, just like remarkable ads, design, art, cheese, etc. If you have six minutes to spare watch this. No-one knows or cares if it’s an ad or a piece of branded content, it’s just my favourite thing from this year.

Link here

(Note: you need to fill in your age, etc to get in, then click on "The Man Who Walked Around The World" in the bottom right corner of the home page)

Wired Breakfast

Apologies for the longer than usual post.

This morning I was at the Wired Intelligence Briefing. There was the usual mix of people in the audience, plenty of Shoreditch techies with their beards and blazers, a smattering of suits (Conde Nast luvvies), a few journos and agency types, and so on. However, I was sat next to someone who was there not because his job title meant that he could get away with a few hours out of the office to scoff some pastries like the rest of us, but because he liked reading the magazine. He was a NORMAL person. I stared at him vacantly and couldn’t think of anything to say to the poor chap.

Anyway, the bulk of the morning was a presentation on coming trends from Wired’s creative agency Hurrel Moseley Dawson and Grimmer. It outlined ten trends, which I list here and give my two pence worth on.

Trend: Individuals vs the corporation

In other words: People will organise themselves to apply pressure on companies to sort out their act and become more transparent in their ways of working

Is it real? It’s already happening (take Starbucks and their taps) but mass media still play a role (Starbucks only really took notice when the Sun, BBC and CNN started running the story)

Trend: The media are unpoliceable

In other words: You can’t regulate or control the internet which is increasingly how people access news and opinion.

Is it real? Yes, it’s like herding cats

Trend: Google’s achilles’ heel

In other words: Real time search could undermine Google’s dominance (ie if you want a plumber isn’t it better to read local people’s experiences in the last few months rather than see a bland list of local plumbers)

Is it real? Real time search sounds like a winner, but Google are smart enough and rich enough to work out a way to cash in on it

Trend: New types of abundance require new types of scarcity

In other words: We have access to tons of stuff and attention is the substance that is now scarce

Is it real? Perhaps, but there are also signs of content becoming scarce again (ie Murdoch’s plans for paid-for content)

Trend: Local Local Local

In other words: Local

Is it real? The idea of communities coming together online to improve their lot, share and discuss sounds great and happens in some places. But it only really works when there is a real shared threat, like someone wanting to build a runway through the school playground. Apart from living in the same place you probably have very little in common with your fellow town folk and some of them will be the type who litter the streets with empty bottles of Lambrini and wear Crocs.

Trend: We are entering a new era of etiquette

In other words: With so much personal info online there are some behaviours that are just not cricket

Is it real? I suppose so, brands can easily screw up by not following the unwritten rules (ie Habitat and their Twitter faux pas). But did everyone stop buying cushions?

Trend: Social networks have a half-life

In other words: there is a cycle of boom and bust as people move on, a bit like the cool kids leaving town when the first Fresh & Wild store opens up.

Is it real? It has been (Friends reunited then Myspace then Facebook). But times are changing and Facebook Connect (where you carry your profile around with you to other networks) could break the cycle.

Trend: There will be an explosion of UK political activism

In other words: Squillions of people are becoming more involved in Politics online

Is it real? Not really. Signing some online petition or joining a Facebook group is a bit of a hollow commitment.

Serendipity and shared experiences

In other words: Despite hyper targeting there is still huge demand for shared experience and discovering new things

Is it real? Obviously yes

Trend: Watch out, sport

In other words: Sport will be the next target for piracy on a mass scale

Is it real? I doubt it. There is only so much sport that people want and it’s already available for a few quid a week in HD surround sound 5.1 stereo with Hawkeye and expert opinion from Warney

The Ultimate Shit Ad

This is not an ad blog. There are lots of ad blogs out there, mainly because it's so easy to write one - there are new ads breaking virtually every day. And it's all too easy to criticise other people's work.

But, on this one occasion, I'm going to discuss an ad. And it's a real stinker. It's the new TV brand ad for BMW.

Watch it here (warning: there are scenes of sickeningly happy and tanned Europeans that will make you want to smash their smug faces in)

Twenty years or more of brand equity that has been carefully constructed and curated through powerful, elegant and understated BMW brand communications, all destroyed by one short film. Strategically and creatively it must rank as the most tragic piece of advertising I have ever seen.

To make things worse, there are print ads too.

How about this for a piece of copy...

"We [BMW] are the creators of emotion"

It gets better...

"We are the guardians of ecstasy, the thrills and chills"

"Innovation is our backbone, but joy is our heart"

"We will give the world the keys to Joy and they will take it for a drive"

Hopefully Joy will crash into a ditch before the brand is ruined beyond recognition.

Hypernomics

There is no doubt that the social side of media is changing the way that people communicate and as a result gives brands new opportunities to engage with consumers. And Social refers to much more than just social networks. It could be anything that gets people talking.

There is one thing though that might hamper the growth of Social as a form of brand communication. And that is the very people who claim to be expert in its application. The hype, mis-information and general bunkum surrounding Social is astonishing. There is no better example than this film from Socialnomics.

Some of the stats in this film are true. Some are laughable.

But it's the arrogance that really comes across. The sooner they grow up and put this stuff into perspective the better.

...And they used Fatboy Slim for the soundtrack!

The Future of Data Visualisation

Earlier this week my agency hosted a small gathering of geeks, techs, nerds and strategists to hear from data visualisation pioneer Manuel Lima. Manuel is the curator of the site visualcomplexity.com that brings together stunning examples of data visualisation from around the globe. His talk was a re-run of his slot at the recent TED global event in Oxford.

He began by discussing the reasons behind the growing fashion for ‘data vis’, the key ones being:

- the never-ending growth of computing power

- the increasing availability of large data sets from all areas of life in a digital world

- the mainstream exposure of data vis given by the likes of the New York Times

- the availability of tools to create visualisations, such as Processing

He then talked us through some beautiful examples, all of which you can find on his site. The emphasis was more on the types of visualisation that he is finding rather than the meaning of the analysis that was being conducted. Data was as diverse as tourist routes in Barcelona, email traffic within Enron and friendship groups within a classroom of school children.

And this is where the debate really takes off. Are these visualisations useful? They can undoubtedly be beautiful - it can’t be long before a gallery exhibits a collection of them (they will be jaw-dropping on a bigger canvas). And I suppose any analysis is only going to be relevant to those that commissioned or undertook it. But if the discipline remains primarily an artistic one then I think it will remain marginal.

Thankfully Lima is aiming higher. His stated aim is to nurture what is currently a pastime for a few tech geeks and digital artists into a fully fledged academic discipline. A discipline that can be truly useful to business and government and one that brings clarity and insight from the tangled mass of data that is being accumulated in every area of modern life.

I also wonder if any research agencies (the experts in bringing clarity from data?) are tapping into people like Lima? If they’re not, they should.

Guardian Readers and Weak Ties

Nothing to do with their taste in clothes, but lots to do with their ability to influence other people and spread word of mouth. These are the findings of new research from, of course, The Guardian.

It's actually a serious piece of work, taking on board existing theories about influencers and the process of word of mouth and building in new qual and quant evidence to bring the whole thing to life. It was conducted on behalf of The Guardian by Crowd DNA (led by Andy Crysell formerly of Ramp Industry) and is nicely packaged - although the design and art direction could be a bit more more exciting. Check it out here

It sits very much on the Gladwell end of the Gladwell vs Watts debate over influencers, in other words some people are much more influential than others and can be identified as such (it's easy, they read The Guardian!)

You can certainly see the logic that people with bigger social networks (made up of more 'loose ties', rather than simply strong ones to close friends and family) are likely to be more vocal and potentially more influential. But there is still the sense that word of mouth is very sector-specific, ie an influencer for nappy brands probably has little influence with regard to mobile phones.

Still, it is good to see media owners doing this kind of research in times like this - although I bet it was commissioned pre-downturn.

this blog is having two weeks off

Time Poor, Data Rich

I’ve been pulling together a piece to help empower planners at my agency to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in to doing their own insight gathering and analytics, rather than brief an analyst to do it for them.

When you line everything up it’s amazing what a modern day planner/researcher can get if they know where to look. I thought I’d share some of these tools here in the hope that someone out there might be able to add in some of their own.

Google’s Adplanner can tell you about site visitors, time spent and demographics (Google are a bit hazy on methodology, but they’re a clever bunch so let’s just play along). It can also allow you to create a bespoke audience based on sites they have visited, keywords used in search, etc, and then look at what other sites they visit (note, you need to sign in to Google to use it).

The daddy of web insight tools Google’s Insight for Search has been around a while. It’s a breeze to use and allows you to look at search trends for multiple terms by region and time. Top tip, combine it with their Adwords Keyword Tool to get actual search volumes.

Wordle has brought some much needed pizzazz to tag clouds. They just look so pretty. Paste in text from any doc, or try pasting in Tweets around a keyword (use this to find the tweets) to instantly visualise how a brand is being discussed.

Tag Galaxy must win the prize for visualisation. It crawls Flickr and grabs images tagged with your keyword before illustrating the results on a spinning interactive globe. Great for demonstrating the visual cohesion, or lack of, for a brand.

Brilliant new tools are also emerging from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other digital giants who are sitting on a ton of data. In time these will be as sophisticated and easy to use as the Google suite.

The most amazing thing though, is that all this is available to anyone, anywhere for absolutely nothing, zero, zilch.

How Much Is Enough?

The previous post about online audience measurement prompted a discussion in the office about the mechanics of measurement (heads up, bit of a nerdy post this one - the discussion moved swiftly to more pressing matters concerning Graham Onions and Steve Harmison).

Anyone who has worked closely with ratings data, be it TV, radio or print knows that the mechanisms for recording viewing/listening/reading can be complex. More importantly the definitions used are often no more than arbitrary. For those that are not familiar with these definitions these are the ones for BARB, Rajar and the NRS:

• TV viewing is defined as 'being in the room with the TV switched on'

• Radio listening is defined as 'listening for 5 minutes or more during a fifteen minute period'

• Newspaper reading is defined as 'reading or looking at for at least 2 minutes'

Beneath these definitions are more complex rules and regulations that also play a role in the process of measurement, eg the TSA areas for radio (that define where a station broadcasts), sort cards for print (that build the short list for the readership questions), and so on. But these definitions also have one other factor built in, namely persistence. You have to listen to a radio station for 5 minutes in order to be recorded as a listener. Two minutes is the rule for reading a newspaper. For TV it’s 30 seconds in a clock minute (consecutive). These are designed to weedle out those who aren’t really of commercial value to an advertiser.

So what is the persistence level for online? 5 seconds? 20 seconds? As far as I can tell there isn’t one (if anyone knows differently let me know). Imagine the scenario: you are sitting at home in front of your laptop and you click on a link. No sooner has the home page loaded than you notice your trousers are on fire. You shut down immediately and call 999. But you’re still counted as a unique user. Is that right?

The purpose of media measurement is to evaluate the likelihood that an individual is exposed to advertising. On this basis established media are getting a raw deal. There is no way the online world will give up audience by introducing a persistence level, so maybe established media should think about relaxing theirs.

Despatch from the frontline of the online measurement war

There is increasing hostility between the internet audience measurement rivals Comscore and Nielsen. As a Comscore subscriber Sigint received an email from their top brass to ‘set the record straight’ following a press release from Nielsen boasting about the size of their own measurement panel.

Clearly on the offensive, Nielsen had claimed to have the largest and most representative online measurement panel in the world. Comscore, now out-flanked, hit back hard saying that Nielsen’s claim was ‘factually untrue’. In other words a lie (this is about as good as it gets in the world of media research believe me). We eagerly await Nielsen’s next move.

But does any of this really matter outside of the PR departments within each camp? Sample size is an issue for any type of research but for gold standard currency data it’s generally accepted that while it would be nice to accurately report everything, in reality you don’t need to. The vast majority of ‘currency’ data users (who also fund the measurement systems) are only interested in the audiences to the more established channels and titles – the bottom of the long tail is simply classified as ‘other’. It makes it hard for new entrants, but no subscriber is going to double or triple their contribution just to measure the tiniest niches in the market.

In the US Comscore claim to report on 70,000 sites monthly, in comparison to the measly 30,000 that Nielsen now covers. But do we really need to know the audience profile to internet site number 70,000? Probably not. What we are really seeing are tactical exchanges of fire in the continuing battle for domination of the online audience measurement world. Meanwhile subscribers hold out for a ceasefire and maybe even the unthinkable, a single, better and cheaper measurement provider.

Insight by Algorithm

With simple digital analytics you can quickly and easily paint a rich picture of your customer. Let’s say you’re Ford and you want to know about visitors to pages on your site featuring the S-Max MPV. A quick run might turn up the following:

Visitors to the S-Max pages also spend time on car sites such as What Car and Car magazine - maybe they are looking for some independent advice. They also over-index on sites such as AutoTrader - perhaps they want to see what prices are like for used Fords. Intriguingly they also score highly for food related sites - perhaps they are modern cosmopolitan types who love cooking as well as cars.

They usually arrived at the site from Google, but downstream they often went to social networks after leaving the Ford site - to talk to their friends about cars perhaps.

The analysis also shows that they are most likely to be ‘new homemakers’ - so maybe looking for a car to suit a young and growing family. You can also see that ‘new homemakers’ are likely to visit interior design sites such as Mydeco and Fired Earth.

So, a strategy built around young families with an interest in food, design and interiors, utilising social networks, looks like a great idea.

However, the following could also be true:

It’s true that visitors to the S-Max pages did also visit What Car and AutoTrader, but they couldn’t really give a stuff about food websites, that was their partner looking for recipes. People usually share the same PC at home and analytics can’t accurately tell different users apart. The downstream traffic to social networks wasn’t the potential S-Max buyers either, it was their 16 year old using Facebook.

And they are not what you would describe as ‘new homemakers’. They have two teenage children. Their interior design tips come from the Argos catalogue. But they do live near to a new housing estate and the geodemographics that link to the analytics assign all addresses in a postcode the same category.

In reality of course most of this noise comes out in the wash. But it does highlight the increasing amount of trust we place in algorithms to decipher the amount of media data we have to play with.

Social media blurs the line between research and marketing

The majority of the media that people consume are still what we call traditional. They are one-way, ‘few to many’ channels whose creation and distribution requires complex infrastructure. They are also channels for marketing of course, and so it’s important to know who the audience is and how many of them are out there. As a result there are industries to create and distribute the media content, other industries to pump that content for commercial value and, sitting in the middle, the media research industry counting the winners and losers.

And it’s research that takes the high ground. It independently audits audience sizes and profiles and even when called to measure commercial effectiveness, research is usually seen as objective and beyond reproach. It’s an industry determined to keep its hands clean when faced with the dirty discipline of marketing.

So called social media are very different to their traditional forebears. They are open channels where media content can be created by anyone and passed around freely. Brands are increasingly in the business of creating their own content rather than just advertising around someone else’s (Nike is a great example). Social media are also comparable in scale to traditional media, at least in terms of reach if not time spent, so they are increasingly taken seriously by brands looking to connect with audiences in new ways.

In this new environment a new type of media research is emerging, one where the space between ‘clean’ research and ‘dirty’ marketing all but disappears. I’m talking more and more to these new breed of agencies about hybrid projects that start with research and end with marketing. A typical brief might flow like this:

- Identify key opinion formers/influencers within specific social media communities

- Recruit them to help refine strategy and develop content

- Turn these influencers into advocates to help mobilise communities and generate maximum word of mouth/mouse

To do this requires an agency that knows how to move between observation and participation. An agency that knows how to report demand but also how to stimulate it. This is completely alien to an industry built around objectivity and the need to neutralise a research effect. But looking at where things are heading there is plenty of business to be had for an agency that is prepared to get its hands dirty.

True Superbrands

This is a true story.

The Offical Top 500 Superbrands for 2009/10 (2010?) will be published in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. Here are the top 10:

Microsoft

Rolex

Google

British Airways

BBC

Mercedes

Coca Cola

Lego

Apple

Encyclopaedia Britannica

You read it correctly. Storming in at number 10 is a resurgent Encyclopaedia Britannica. Forget those Wikipedia cowboys and their open-sourced oddball, this is the real thing. There is such a buzz on the street about good old EB. Sure, no-one actually buys it and its only got around 400k people visiting it online each month, compared to the 15 million who use Wikipedia, but it’s been around since the 18^th century and that counts for a lot when it comes to knowing stuff.

And isn’t it nice to see Microsoft at number one. Bill Gates is loved and cherished the world over for giving us the Internet and other things like that. And in those slacks he looks just like an ordinary guy!

This splendid survey also puts those foolish internet startups (upstarts more like!) in their place. Granted those Google folk got third place but The Facebook was ranked 248^th !, behind Alka-Seltzer and Tampax – real brands that you can actually buy in a shop. 300 million people can be wrong! And Amazon only got 155^th place, they should try building some proper bookstores.

The doomed internet TV website YouTube also gets put in its rightful place, at 169. It’ll never catch on. The venue for legitimate entertainment is the Royal Albert Hall, at number 36 (just behind John Lewis, another personal favourite).

Well done Superbrands for standing up for the brands that we really care about.

The Credit Crunch Explained

Last week a fifteen year old on work experience at Morgan Stanley wrote a summary of his media behaviour as part of his internship. It contains nothing very new or interesting. Read about it here if you want http://is.gd/1xagI or see the actual report here http://is.gd/1xalG.

Some of its key revelations were:
- Teens listen to the radio for music and think the ads get in the way
- Most teens watch TV
- They don’t read newspapers, apart from the freesheets which they read a lot, as well as The Sun now it’s 20p [so in fact they are seeing more newsprint than ever before!]
- They like console games and play them lots
- They use Facebook, but they don’t use Twitter very much
- They search for stuff using a search engine called Google
- They don’t like outdoor ads…hate them in fact [oh, apart from ones aimed at them, like for GTA, which they think are cool]

And yet Morgan Stanley were so blown away by the ‘insights’ it contained they immediately issued it to their clients on their research wire and described it as “one of the clearest and most thought provoking insights we have seen”. Apparently they have since had “dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEO’s, calling about it”.

Morgan Stanley went on to describe the latest album by Girls Aloud as “without doubt the finest contemporary recording since Dylan went electric”, they also commented on the new Dan Brown novel as “ranking up there with Philip Roth at his peak” and Ice Age 3D as “so amazing it just really feels like you’re actually in the real ice age!”.

The Buzz Around Buzz

I’ve recently been talking to some of the new kids on the research block, the social media monitors. The likes of Market Sentinel, MotiveQuest, Cymfony, etc. They each have their own approach, but their core offer is the same: they listen to brand related conversations on the web and aggregate them for analysis. Volume, trend, sentiment, and so on.

They put forward a compelling argument for their services and they claim they are furiously busy (which I believe). But a couple of things struck me after seeing their pitches.

1) Scale. You rapidly lose any sense of volume or context when you look at the data produced by these guys – if you had any to begin with that is. How many people does this buzz come from? How much of the ‘conversation’ are you listening to? And, of course, who the hell are these people and who do they represent? How would you feel if your strategy was influenced by people who call radio phone-in shows? OK, extreme example, but you get my point.

2) Depth. The power of this stuff lies in its authenticity. It’s unsolicited. Raw and pure. But that also means you have no way of really digging into why people say the things they do. It’s a bit like a focus group with no moderator and you just watching through the mirror. Except that with a focus group at least you know exactly who you are listening to.

This is an important new tool for sure – Google’s mantra that ‘more data is better data’ applies. But it’s not going to give you all the answers. So why are these guys so busy…

1) It sounds sexy
2) It looks great – opportunity for nice data visualisation
3) Most importantly it doesn’t require anyone to spend their Tuesday evenings eating crisps in a recruiters chintz palace in Solihull

PS The image is from a case study presented by one agency. Sadly they couldn’t explain what the chart actually showed.

Did 1bn People Really Watch This?

Headline in yesterdays paper read: 1bn tune in to watch Michael Jackson memorial.

If there is one area where fact and fiction are furthest apart it is global viewing estimates. 1bn is almost one in six of every being on the planet. Give me strength.

A glance at some proper numbers: US viewing estimate: 30m. UK viewing: 6m. And they are probably the markets most passionate about his music. Where are the other 964m coming from?

In reality the Jackson memorial pulled in about the same as the Pop Idol final in the US. And around one-third of the annual Superbowl audience of 100m or so. In the UK 6m is the same as Top Gear. So if audiences were moderate in the US and UK why would they be any different elsewhere? They wouldn't, they would be even smaller proportionately.

What about online? A few million globally at most.

PS One phrase to watch out for in this area is 'potential audience'. It simply means what the audience would be if everyone who could receive the channel the event was broadcast on tuned in to it. Utterly meaningless.

Daft Questions

We all talk a lot about how brands need to behave in the digital age (try explaining that to your 4 year old when she asks what you actually do at work). We go on and on about how we need to build a conversation with the consumer rather than heckle them from afar, the need to offer something in return for the time a consumer might spend with us, and so on.

But every now and again we’re yanked from the cutting edge of brand communications and thrown back into a time gone by. This happened today when I saw research into the ‘effectiveness’ of different channels. Here’s the question they asked:

"There are many different types of ads and many venues for them. Which one of the following do you find most helpful in deciding what products or services to purchase?"

The possible answers were ‘TV ads’, ‘newspaper ads’, ‘search engine ads’ and so on.

Oh dear.

Ask yourself this question and then try and give an honest answer. Firstly, it assumes people find ads helpful. They don’t. The vast majority of ads just get in the way of the stuff that people really want.

Secondly, it appears to treat all ads, for all products and services, the same. The ad could be for a car, a pension or a ringtone.

I could go on, and on.

FYI Harris Interactive in the US press released the results. Like it matters.

This is a blog about the world of media research (at last, I hear you cry). It's a bit like Ben Goldacre's Bad Science http://www.badscience.net/, but for media and brands rather than cancer and herbal remedies. It'll be about the sort of stuff planners and strategists wet their pants about when they see something really good. The trouble is, a lot of it's rubbish, so I thought I'd use this space to grumble about it...