Opinion
How has Touchpoints stacked up?
10.03.2007Jane Watson, Consumer Insight Director Unveiling findings from the IPA Touchpoints hub survey in March 2006, Adam Swann of the World Federation of Advertisers remarked “[the survey] will only be as good as the implementation.”
Almost 12 months on, has Touchpoints managed to live up to its promise of being an essential media research and planning tool?
Having had access to the Touchpoints hub survey now for almost 12 months, it has undoubtedly provided Initiative with insights into both traditional and new media channels thanks to its wide range of attitude statements and the in-depth diary data. On a practical note this means that we have been able to provide our clients with a more in-depth media analysis of basic target audiences, painting a picture of a day in their life and delving into areas such as mobile and event sponsorship in more detail than we have been able to do previously. The more recent release of the fully abridged database, complete with TGI product data has taken us one step further, allowing us to profile more complex target audiences based on brand buying behaviour or groups re-created from client segmentation analysis.
As well as being a useful tool for media targeting, Touchpoints has also proved a useful resource for investigating various ad-hoc media issues. As a recent example, we used Touchpoints to investigate the scope of the opportunity provided by media multi-tasking – something many in the media industry claim is an increasing phenomenon. Data collected through the PDA diary which captures media consumption patterns across the day gave us the opportunity to isolate instance of media multi-tasking and in fact showed that solus media consumption is still the norm. For example, when watching TV, only 1 in 10 people will be consuming another medium at the same time and levels of multi-tasking vary across the day. In this case, Touchpoints provided a helpful springboard for a bigger project, allowing us to focus valuable research money.
Touchpoints has therefore so far lived up to expectation as being a useful research and targeting tool for the agency. In reality however, we have always been able to use TGI to provide clients with detailed profiles of their target audiences and whilst Touchpoints has added further depth to our profiling, it is as in a multi-media planning tool that its true value lies.
The fully integrated planning tool, complete with TGI product data, has only been available to Initiative for a few months now, so it has yet to be fully embraced by strategists and planners across the agency. As with any new research tool, it will take time for it to be incorporated into working practices but there have also been various updates and alterations to the database which has made planners hesitant to place too much reliance on the tool.
One of the questions we have had to ask as an agency, is where does the tool fit in the planning process, and therefore where does the tool sit within our agency structure? Alterations to the granularity of the database have seen the planning tool go from something which would allow planners to optimise campaigns in great detail – a task our planner/buyers would perform later in the planning process – to a tool with a more macro view allowing for channel planning – a task done by our strategists. Unfortunately this shift in granularity has not been uniform across all media channels so we now have a tool which for some media is good for channel planning and for others is more suited to detailed channel optimisation. Whilst this is not an issue that can be addressed by the IPA directly, it is a problem which needs to be resolved between the media agencies and data bureaus before Touchpoints can realise its full potential and provide value. As the database can potentially be provided at both the detailed and the macro levels, it would appear that there would be an opportunity for two planning tools, both of which can be utilised at different points in the planning cycle. In the initial stages of planning, the strategist is interested in demonstrating to the client the value of a multi-media campaign, highlighting what each channel adds to the plan. Plans will be very topline at this stage with various options being considered. There isn’t usually the time and the resource to be able to work through channel plans in detail, so a tool that allows planners to allocate spend by channel (rather than having to input page insertions by title for example) would mean that Touchpoints has lived up to it’s full potential as an essential media planning tool. Whilst a detailed optimisation tool is useful to have later in the planning process, it is at the initial stages of planning that multi-media synergies need to be demonstrated and sold in as budgets are agreed.
Although there are no major issues with the base data the IPA has collected through the Touchpoints Hub survey, going forward an increased sample would mean that minority audiences and smaller media vehicles are picked up in more robust numbers.
The way internet consumption is collected should also be reviewed in conjunction with media planners as well as researchers. As an evolving platform, rather than a media channel, it is the nature of the activity being delivered through the online environment, not the fact of being ‘online’ itself which is important when planning a media campaign. Being able to split behaviour out in terms of using search engines, communicating by email or instant messaging, viewing specific genres of website, using social network sites etc. are important when including online in a multi-media campaign.
This highlights one of the biggest issues for the IPA going forward - ensuring they get feedback from media planners, not just media researchers. Although it has primarily been researchers that have had to be heavily involved in the detail of the set up of Touchpoints, it is the media planners – the end users of the research – who now need to provide more input going forward, both in terms of what they want to see from the planning software and the scope of the Touchpoints survey itself.
