Measurement Goes Mobile

Michael Hedges April 21, 2010 Follow on Twitter

The ubiquity of the mobile phone has become a basic building block of the media world. Only cave-dwellers question the power of this device, loved by consumers, to deliver a different business model. The measurement people know this.

Within days two giants of media measurement – Ipsos and GfK – tickled customers and suppliers with new plans to use the mobile phone for gathering all-important information. Both companies have experimented with and invested in electronic measurement systems for most of the last decade.

Ipsos MediaCT is ready to field-trial its MediaCell radio audience measurement system in London, according to a company announcement (April 15). The technology developer is Intrasonics. The system is software-based for mobile phones. Virtually no other details were revealed.

On the television side – and closer to the meat – GfK is expanding its Web Efficiency Panel in Germany from measuring online advertising to television ads. Media buyers are interested in program ratings but ratings for individual ads get them all excited. Data is collected from “modified mobile phones, which record exposure to TV advertising through sound recognition,” said the GfK statement (April 19). Offered to media buyers is single source data on TV and internet ad exposure plus consumer buying behavior. GfK is using audio matching technology from Thomson MediaControl.

Ipsos’ MediaCell collects identifying data that resides in a radio station’s transmitted signal, similar to technology developed by US firm Arbitron. It differs MediaControl, parent of the Radiocontrol ‘watch’ used in Switzerland, which collects and encrypts analogue information that is matched with a database of real-time radio signals. Developing the technology has been expensive and long in coming.

In the US, Ipsos and Media Audit began working seriously on a mobile phone-based measurement device with support from radio broadcasting giant Clear Channel. The technology used in the US development and trials came from a Texas company. Arbitron, which has invested zillions in its Portable People Meter (PPM) electronic device for radio audience measurement sued Ipsos in 2006 for patent infringement.

That suit was settled in early 2009, effectively dismissed, with Ipsos and Media audit agreeing not to further develop or market radio audience measurement products until Arbitron’s US patents expire. Ipsos further agreed to suspend all commercialization of portable electronic measurement in the US until January 2012. Obviously, Ipsos could continue working on measurement systems outside the US.

Arbitron struck a deal with TNS to market the PPM in Europe and beyond, placing devices that resemble pagers in Norway and Denmark. RAJAR, the joint industry body for radio audience measurement in the UK, rejected the PPM after trials and continued with the good ol’ diary. It’s notable that RAJAR research director Paul Kennedy was quoted in the Ipsos statement saying RAJAR “will take a keen interest in this new trial.”

A software-based collection system using mobile phones is a tantalizing idea. Obviously, the mobile phone is ubiquitous, perhaps improving respondent compliance. Companies in Italy and France have experimented with mobile phones for measurement, capturing outdoor ad exposure included, but potential respondents, who have to carry the device, have been reluctant to carry two mobile phones or they forget which is for research and which is for calling their friends. Arbitron’s PPM device looks and feels like a pager device. The RadioControl ‘watch’ is, of course, a watch. A software solution could correct that problem; install the measurement software like a phone app. That would certainly fix the bigger point of resistance from service subscribers. A software solution would be far less expensive than a hardware solution.

None of this gets around the great and persistent questions of what, indeed, electronic measurement actually measures. Nearly a decade after electronic measurement for radio came to Europe – and after a few bugs were worked out – resistance among broadcasters has largely faded. PPM measurement came to Norway in 2006. “Reach increased for all radio channels and also for total radio use,” said public broadcaster NRK audience researcher Tor Eide in an email. He also says he’s “very much” pleased with the results.

See also in ftmKnowledge

Media Measurement - Changing Times

The times are changing and so is media measurement. Big research companies are changing and growing. And governments are putting in their hands. Includes: mobile and internet metrics, electronic measurement systems and device descriptions, PPM (US) debate. 73 pages PDF (January 2009)

Order here

We've Gone Mobile - and nothing's the same

Consumers have taken to smartphones in huge numbers. Competition among device makers, telecoms and content producers has created an insatiable demand. With so much volume markets are fragmenting... and nothing's the same. 132 pages PDF (February 2011)

Order here