FMQB - What we've learned from the Philly PPM... So Far

Useful Insights for PPM and Diary Markets  by Gary Marince

With the successful launch of the Arbitron Portable People Meter as the official source of ratings in Philadelphia late last month, we’re witnessing history in the making: electronic ratings for radio is finally a reality. And as exciting as it is for markets who are converting to PPM, the lessons learned from Philadelphia and Houston are easily translatable to markets which may not see PPM anytime soon.

Keep in mind that PPM is actually a form of behavioral research. Among the benefits of using a panel of consumers who wear the PPM over a long period (as opposed to Diarykeepers who are engaged in the ratings process for only a week), we’re observing the same group of people using radio over time. We see how they change listening habits and often can associate why they do so. Programmers now have unprecedented insight into how people use and listen to radio.

So, what behaviors are we seeing and what lessons can we learn?  For programmers, the importance of P1 listening is...  [ MORE ]

Also see  ArbitronPDCentral.com Blog

Radio Online: PPM Marketing Campaign Launches in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Radio Organization will launch a local marketing campaign to help drive the launch of Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM) in Philadelphia. Arbitron has agreed to provide significant seed money for program design, assistance with implementation of the plan in Philadelphia and rights to use the creative execution & campaign plan for other markets.  [ MORE ]

MediaDaily: Nielsen Foe Uncovers 'Holy Grail,' It's Called Remo

OF THE MANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES that have attracted Spark Capital and a group of potential strategic partners to fledgling ratings firm erinMedia one is a patent for a new technology that has the potential for transforming not just media audience measurement, but the integration of media exposure and product usage data that some have long described as the "Holy Grail" of marketing and media research. The patent, which is still pending in the U.S. and key international markets, is the heart of a sophisticated TV remote control that would enable marketers and agencies to track what people were doing with their TV sets, as well as other media and, perhaps most importantly, what consumer products they buy.

...

But a glance at the formidable patent filing, nearly 47,000 words in all, offers a picture of a device that could do just about anything a marketer, an agency or a media company might want to know about a subscriber who chose to interact with it.   [ MORE ]

Arbitron Custom Sports Study

NOTE:  It will be fascinating to watch the results on this topic that come out of Philadelphia and Houston from PPM data.  When the PPM is finally rolled out in the home towns of Superbowl teams over next several years, there will be some amazingly rich data to mine.  MSO

Arbitron Custom Sports Study Finds the Run Up to the Super Bowl boosts Sports Radio audiences in Indianapolis and Chicago

Local radio coverage of NFL classic reaches one third of Indianapolis adults and one quarter of adults in Chicago

Super Bowl parties with friends and family boost out-of-home television viewing

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) has unveiled a custom sports study that profiles how adults aged 18 and older in Indianapolis and Chicago listened to and watched Super Bowl XLI on radio and television.

While the Super Bowl is a quintessential media event across the country, in the hometowns of the AFC and NFC contenders, Indianapolis fans bested their Chicago rivals in interest, attention and share of media coverage.  [ Full Text of Release at BusinessWire ]

Related story at MediaWeek

Arbitron and Nielsen Formalize Project Apollo

Arbitron and The Nielsen Company Sign Agreement and Form Jointly-Owned Limited Liability Company to Continue Development of 'Project Apollo' Marketing Research Service

Proposed service would link the Arbitron Portable People Meter system with ACNeilsen Homescan Technology

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 1, 2007—Arbitron Inc. (NYSE:ARB) and The Nielsen Company announced today that they have signed an agreement that will govern completion of development and testing of the ‘Project Apollo’ marketing research service and the expansion of the pilot panel to a full national service if the test results meet expectations and generate marketplace support. The parties have formed a jointly-owned limited liability company to continue pursuit of the project.

The proposed ‘Project Apollo’ service would use the Arbitron Portable People Meter^TM system, ACNielsen Homescan technology and other technologies to provide advertisers with a better understanding of the connection between consumer exposure to advertising on multiple media and their shopping/purchase behavior.

“By making it possible to link the Arbitron Portable People Meter system with ACNielsen Homescan technology, this agreement between Arbitron and The Nielsen Company will help make real the industry’s long standing dream of a true, ‘single-source’ consumer research service,” said Steve Morris, president and chief executive officer, Arbitron Inc.

Full Text of Press Release at Arbitron.com

Stories posted at:

    Media Buyer Planner

    Hollywood Reporter

    Brandweek Magazine

    Television Week

    Broadcasting & Cable

    FMQB

Media Planning Mindset

While the radio industry is having a discussion about whether or not it can or will embrace a passive measurement system like PPM, brand managers, marketers and agencies are having conversations that sound much like this article from Mark Green posted this week on MediaPost.  The radio industry should be digging into understanding this new system and how to use it to illustrate the accountability of this medium in the highly targeted, results-oriented, accountable world that is marketing today.

Targeting: From Seeing to Believing

Almost 40 years ago, the media community started negotiating television deals on gross ratings points for persons instead of households. Ten years ago, some intrepid buyers started to include the importance of unduplicated rating points, commonly called reach, in their negotiations. More recently, a few buyers began to target consumer ratings instead of demographic ratings.

The tools for this next step are still evolving through fusion and related technologies that connect consumption studies with media measurement tracking data. On the side, a whole business of marketing mix modeling has grown up to provide direction on which marketing techniques are driving short-term incremental sales. VNU/Arbitron's much discussed single-source Apollo pilot might become the centralizing force. It is meant to provide marketing, media, and purchasing observations in a single source, driving strategy and tactics for targeting and execution in real time without the fog and complexity of probability models.  [ MORE ]

After reading the full article, how many of our current sellers could we send in to have a conversation at this level - and with which tools would we prepare them?  MSO

MarketingDaily: Nielsen In-Store Will Measure Retail Media

VNU AND THE IN-STORE MARKETING Institute announced yesterday that they will form Nielsen In-Store, designed to measure how customers react to point-of-purchase media, including television and radio, shelf talkers, and digital signage.

The new service will build on P.R.I.S.M. (Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric), a research effort led by the In-Store Marketing Institute early this year in conjunction with marketers 3M, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Miller Brewing, Procter & Gamble and The Walt Disney Company, as well as retailers Albertsons, Kroger, Walgreens and Wal-Mart.

[ MORE ]

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Wal-Mart Signs On for Project Apollo

Wal-Mart Moves Signal New Power Shift From Retailers To Consumers

Two possibly interrelated moves signal a profound shift for the world's biggest retailer. They may also signal a fundamental shift in the power of consumer marketing. Retail giant Wal-Mart Thursday announced its support of Arbitron's and VNU's Apollo project, and said it would subscribe to the data generated by a pilot project for the new single-source research system that simultaneously measures what advertising and media consumers are exposed to and what products they purchase in retail outlets.

Wal-Mart marks the first big retailer to sign on to the project, and coupled with its other recent moves, including its plans to announce a new ad agency roster, may reveal its need for greater consumer insights than it might have needed in the past. Among other things, one of its new agency partners, Carat, has a division that is deemed the best company at marketing mix modeling, a sophisticated form of marketing research that can also measure how advertising and media directly impact consumer purchases.

The developments are significant, because they also mark another radical shift in the power of marketing information - what some might call the Third Wave of mass marketing.  [ MORE ]

Also see:  Arbitron Press Release, AdWeek, Reuters

Broadcasting&Cable: Apollo Gets Lift From Ad Backers

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has endorsed Arbitron's Project Apollo, a new service to integrate viewership with product purchasing information.

That service, which is based on Portable People Meters, is intended to give advertisers a better guauge of the effectiveness of their ads by relating exposures across multiple platforms to shopping behaviors.

Abitron has teamed with Nielsen parent VNU to develop the service.  Nielsen is no longer a partner in the PPM tests, though it could wind up licensing the technology for some applications.

Calling on its member agencies, advertisers and media to support the project, the WFA said it would "enable us to know our customers as buyers of our brands as well as xonsumers of media in a very strategic and actionable way, thus enabling a new level of media planning effectiveness and a substantial leap in media spending productivity."  WFA represents 55 advertiser associations worldwide, including 40 fo the top 100.  [ MORE ]