The new mediaproduct survey in Spain: a difficult start

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The new media-product survey in Spaina
difficult start

• Carlos Lamas
• June 2004

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INTRODUCTION

• Just to remind you, AIMC is the Spanish JIC body
  with 158 members (media and advertising
  companies). Our main product is the multimedia
  survey EGM, which provides the currency for
  print media, radio and cinema.
• In 2001, there were two media-product surveys
  available to the Spanish market the SIMM,
  operated by TNS, and the TGI of BMRB. The SIMM
  was introduced in 1992 and the TGI in 1999. Both
  surveys had few subscribers at relatively high
  prices.
• En 2002, AIMC decided to start a new survey of
  its own under the principle that each and every
  AIMC member would become a survey user and would
  also contribute to finance the study. This AIMC
  standard approach involves, on one hand, a
  dramatic impact on the price to be paid by the
  individual user and, on the other, a generalized
  usage by all the market players. The idea was
  mainly promoted and supported by the media
  agencies.

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REACTION FROM SIMM AND TGI

• TNS claimed that AIMCs plans amounted to unfair
  competition and force them to close the SIMM
  survey, and asked AIMC to consider some kind of
  joint-venture research.
• BMRB approached us to offer their survey to AIMC
  and all their members at special conditions.

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IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH (1)

• Two alternative plans were first considered
• Start a new survey from scratch. No collaboration
  with TNS or BMRB.
• Arrive to an agreement with one of the two
  existing suppliers.

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IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH (2)

• The design of the final approach was a bit more
  complicated and involved a three party agreement.
• Both TNS and BMRB agreed to discontinue their
  respective surveys in Spain from 2003 onwards.
• The only owner of the new product, named AIMC
  Marcas, would be AIMC.
• TNS would be AIMCs only research supplier for
  this survey and would be paid for that.
• BMRB would have the exclusive rights to sell the
  AIMC Marcas database outside Spain and could
  use it as a component of their Global TGI
  studies. In return, BMRB would pay a certain
  amount of money.
• BMRB and TNS could provide application software
  to AIMC members to handle the AIMC Marcas
  database.
• The only way of getting access to AIMC Marcas
  would be to become an AIMC member.

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IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH (3)

• What each party gained
• AIMC A faster start and a reduction of the
  financial contribution of its members. On the
  other side, AIMC Marcas would be the only product
  of this type in the market, thus becoming a
  generalized standard tool.
• TNS Receive a regular income out of the study.
• BMRB Obtain the Spanish database at a reduced
  cost. The starting point to build up the
  questionnaire for AIMC Marcas was the previous
  TGI questionnaire.
• Everybody was happy!

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THE AIMC MARCAS QUESTIONNAIRE

• A special task force within AIMC was created to
  build it. Both TNS and BMRB were members of the
  task force.
• The existing questionnaires from TGI and SIMM
  were taken into account.
• The group did a very good job. Every participant
  was most creative and, after three months work,
  we arrived to a questionnaire of 240 pages when
  the previously stated limit was 160. Reducing it
  to the required size was more painful to the
  people involved than getting several teeth
  extracted.
• Anyway, I feel that we could apply for a place in
  the Guinness Book of Records as we claim to have
  achieved the longest and heaviest questionnaire
  in the world. A dubious honour!

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QUESTIONNAIRE CONTENT

• Food and drink in the home
• Products and articles for the home and
  decoration.
• Clothes, footwear, and toys for children and
  child care articles.
• A day in your life. Time-usage section.
• Clothes and footwear Section for men
• Clothes and footwear Section for women.
• What you consume personally.
• Personal and home equipment.
• The media.
• Travel, holidays, sport and leisure time.
• Trade and purchases.
• Financial services, insurance and the motor car.
• Hygiene, beauty and health.
• Employment, education and other opinions.

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QUESTIONNAIRE SIZE (version 2003)
Does not include white-label brands
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TIME NEEDED TO FILL IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE

• We estimate that a University graduate proceeding
  at a regular speed needs at least seven hours to
  fill in the questionnaire!!!
• But they are no doubt well paid for the job. They
  get a gift valued 12 euros as incentive

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THE QUESTIONNAIRE LOOK
The mascot of the survey is this funny squirrel
named Marcos or, in a more familiar way,
Marquitos
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Instructions to the respondent
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Instructions to the respondent
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Instructions to the respondent
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PROCESSING

• Optical reading of the questionnaires (no manual
  data entry).
• Heavy RIM weighting procedure. On top of
  socio-demographic characteristics, a high number
  of conditions related to the audience level of
  different media are taken into account.
• Distribution of results
• Printed report. We use the questionnaire layout
  and provide a basic marginal figure for every
  question.
• Electronic report in CD-Rom (around 20.000 pages
  of aggregated information).
• Disaggregated database to be handled with an
  appropriate application software.

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THE SAMPLE AND THE FIELDWORK

• 10.000 interviews per year. The respondents come
  from three different sources
• An access panel operated by TNS (8.300).
• EGMs respondents that were willing to
  participate in a larger survey. To this effect,
  we had introduced a specific question at the end
  of the EGMs questionnaire.
• A special complementary quota sample to cover the
  Canary Islands and other weaknesses in the access
  panel.
• The self-completion questionnaires are delivered
  by postal mail to the addresses coming from the
  access panel and the EGM sample and personally to
  the special sample. In all instances the material
  is sent back by mail. At least two reminder
  letters were sent when required.
• The fieldwork is organized in three equal waves
  of three months each.

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RESPONSE RATES

• Access panel Around 60 of the sent
  questionnaires are returned.
• About 24 of the EGMs interviewees accept to
  collaborate in a further survey and are sent the
  AIMC Marcas questionnaire. However, only 20 of
  them send the questionnaire back.

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SUMMARY

• It was very hard to reach an agreement which was
  acceptable to TNS, BMRB and AIMC.
• To arrive to a consensus on the final
  questionnaire was a very lengthy and exhausting
  fight.
• From a methodological point of view, there are
  critical issues
• Questionnaire size.
• Response rates.
• Low sampling efficiency due to a heavy weighting
  procedure.
• But
• The users are happy with such a big single source
  database.
• The survey is becoming a reference tool in the
  Spanish market.

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Thank you all for
GRACIAS POR
having listened
to my grandpa!!
VUESTRA
ATENCIÓN