The Covid impact on audience measurement

Covid-19 has had a tremendous impact on the growth and redistribution of audiences as well as on the systems that support audience estimates. Just like audiences, metrics are at the mercy of forces buffeting society and the business environment we are operating in.

Audience measurement is a product of the systems and methodologies that underpin it, so understanding how they fare and what their capabilities are under current circumstances is important because it helps to understand the results they produce and, consequently, gives confidence in decisions that analysts and planners make based upon them.

No measurement system is perfect however advertisers and agencies grappling with how best to respond at this time would do well to invest in channels backed by trustworthy, robust systems. Some are more resilient than others, capable of producing accurate, reliable audience measurement regardless of external environmental factors.

Behavioural, surveyed and modelled

Broadly speaking, media audience research falls into three categories: behavioural, surveyed and modelled. These are selected according to the nature of the medium being measured and their unique characteristics, as well as other considerations such as cost.

Behavioural research requires some form of direct measurement of audiences, typically in the shape of a meter or a pixel that records actual behaviour of a sample group of people which is then projected into a universal estimate. Survey research asks respondents about their media consumption (and other things) and then projects their responses to provide an estimate of the population as a whole. The modelled technique uses a variety of data inputs to create a simulation of audience size and profile.

Examples of these three systems are OzTAM (behavioural), emma (survey) and MOVE (modelled).

The nature of behavioural metrics is that they are more current and dynamic: digital data is instantaneously available and takes little time to process and then project the data to a population estimate. Modelled metrics are usually at the least dynamic end of the spectrum with surveys falling in the middle.

It follows that metrics such as OzTAM and DCR digital can be relied upon to be the most accurate in terms of recording the shift in dynamics of media audiences under the lockdown, modelled systems such as MOVE the least and surveys again sitting in the middle of the spectrum.

Door-to-door data collection challenged

How surveys are conducted also has a major impact on how accurate and robust they can be under the prevailing circumstances of Covid-19. Clearly media measurement systems that rely on door-to-door data collection are presently unable to operate and will be unable to produce results approximating to reality. We have recently seen that Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) has (responsibly) suspended its audience survey in acknowledgement of this reality.

Unlike this and other surveys, the official emma print and cross-platform survey is not reliant on door-to-door methods of data collection, as it collects survey data online after respondents have been recruited and appropriately screened via telephone. In this sense, it is robust and resilient, as well as accurate and timely. The prevalence of Australians working from home has meant no shortage of willingness in people available to undertake the survey.

Another benefit to this form of survey methodology is that The Readership Works is able to provide industry stakeholders with reliably indicative reports of audience movement and characteristics on a monthly basis. Examples include not just the gross volume of readership but geography, weekend vs. weekday and source of copy.

So, rather than take audience figures at face value it might be worth taking a minute to dig a little deeper and understand how dependable the audience measurement systems you’re using to plan or buy media really are. With marketers looking to optimise value from every advertising dollar they invest, familiarising yourself with the pros and cons of different metrics is as important as choosing media supported by robust and trustworthy measurement.