Monday, June 21, 2010

Is Getting Rid Of The Docking Station Going To Fix PPM Problems?

On Jun 21, 2010, at 6:57 AM, Chuck Geiger wrote: "The introduction of Arbitron 360 - Mobile monitoring device - What it means to you? The positives and negatives?"

It is a much-needed improvement which hopefully will increase the carry rate, especially early in the morning of women.

But, it doesn't address THE problems:

1) under-representation by a factor of two to four of cell phone only homes in the sample which necessitates HUGE weighting in almost every demo from month to month and

2) the fact that the sample simply must be at least four times larger in order to be truly statistically-reliable.

The diary sample has never been great, but at least in what Canadians call "BBM ballots" (diary survey = an election, a chance to vote for your favorites vs measurement of real usage) when you get a week with one household sending back one or even more diaries with 201+ quarter hours you know that home won't be in next week's sample.

In PPM, you will still live with homes like that for an average of seven months in the U.S. and at least a year in Canada.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think Arbitron's issuance of the new units was to improve the sample, but the technical ends of the electronic measured ratings service. These units obviously are more user-friendly than the meters. Who know until Randy Kabrich buys one on E-Bay.

Inside Radio said...

The cell phone is no longer a tomorrow solution for Arbitron.

With a deal to buy Integrated Media Measurement Inc (IMMI) it will potentially move up its timeline for launching a cell phone-based radio ratings system. The San Mateo, CA-based IMMI has developed a cross-platform measurement product that tracks media consumption on television, computer screen, mobile device and radio using a mobile phone.

Under terms of the acquisition, Arbitron gets the technology portfolio, patents, and trade name. Last
December, IMMI was granted a U.S. patent for its proprietary mobile media monitoring and measurement platform that uses an audio matching technology to passively gather data about panelists’ media consumption — including on computers and
mobile phones.

IMMI co-founder/COO Amanda Welse says, “Our data is gathered passively and continuously, 24/7, using a single-source collection methodology and is more accurate and insightful than systems that rely upon modeling techniques and static survey assumptions.”

It attracted the attention of several companies interested in licensing the technology for use
in syndicated media measurement services.

The deal with Arbitron not only gives its multi-platform effort a leap forward, but it may also potentially eliminate rivals from gaining a toehold. IMMI had been working with Nielsen on an out-of-home ratings product until Nielsen walked away from the partnership in November 2008. Since then IMMI has been going it alone.

Most recently it worked side-by-side with Arbitron in Vancouver where both companies tracked Winter Olympic iPhone and BlackBerry exposure for NBC Universal.

IMMI has been operating a six-market panel with 3,000 participants. Each was given a cell phone loaded with its software that monitors and reports back whatever they hear, much like an Arbitron meter would.

Arbitron’s not expected to continue operating the panel.