In This Issue

Volume IV December 2003

MRI University:

• Measurement of Magazine Readership via the Internet

• Restoring Credibility to Sunday Magazine Measurement

• MRI’s Qualitative Measures

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Magazine Audience Accumulation Study Available To Subscribers

Beginning January 2004, MRI will make its Magazine Audience Accumulation Study available to subscribers for no additional cost. "Since the industry is moving toward multi-media planning systems that focus on weekly reach goals, audience accumulation curves are vital if print and broadcast are to compete on a level playing field. Agencies have found MRI accumulation curves so useful we felt making them more widely available would encourage broader use and help the print industry find its rightful place in multi-media planning," says MRI President and CEO Kathi Love.

Study Tracks When Readers Actually Read Their Magazines
When buying advertising space in magazines, it is not always enough just to know how many readers may see the ad. Media planners also want some idea of when those readers are going to see it so they can coordinate simultaneous TV, radio, print and new media campaigns.

The 2000 MRI Magazine Audience Accumulation Study is the first major update of print audience accumulation data since the 1970’s. It examines the reading behavior of more than 10,000 respondents to determine the rate at which readers first read or look into a magazine once it’s available to subscribers or on the newsstand. The study reveals that the rate of accumulating readers varies by publication frequency and by magazine type. In some cases, a magazine issue continues to attract new first-time readers some four-to-five months after the first available issue date.

A look at accumulation curves for three weekly magazines, unnamed in this example, illustrates how varied audience accumulation can be. Magazine A has attracted approximately 90% of its audience within one week of its on-sale date, while Magazine B has only reached 46% of its audience within the first week of availability. And Magazine C attracts 11% of its audience before its stated on-sale date. This information can be useful if, for instance, the purpose of a print ad is to drive customers to purchase a product only available for a specific period. The other ground-breaking benefit of knowing how magazines build their audience on a week-to-week basis, however, is that planners can calculate weekly GRP’s for print as well as TV, an essential tool in building effective multi-media advertising campaigns.

Accumulation Curves Available Through MEMRI and Updated Twice a Year
MRI Accumulation Curves will be made available to MRI subscribers through MEMRI, IMS, New Age and Telmar. MRI curves are updated every six months with data from each release of MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer. For more information on how to use MRI’s Magazine Audience Accumulation Study, please contact your MRI Account Executive.
 

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• To determine the level of readership and audience composition obtained via an Internet-based sample and data collection procedure.
• To determine the impact of sample source, number of titles and stimuli composition within this sample and data collection context.

The Internet samples measured and compared to MRI data were based on two sources: SSI LITe and SSI Spot.

While this analysis only scratches the surface of research MRI plans to conduct in the future, initial results speak to the difficulty of replicating MRI’s national survey via the Internet. Specifically:

1. Audience levels (Average Issue Readership) obtained from economically feasible Internet-based data collection procedures do not mirror those obtained by MRI’s face-to-face interviewing methodology. On average, both of the Internet samples produced audience levels higher than the MRI syndicated currency levels.
2. Differences between the Internet-based audience estimates and those reported by MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer are not "constant" across titles. In other words, each Internet sample showed different results.
3. Differences between Internet measurement and the MRI syndicated study are not restricted to Average Issue Readership. There are differences in gender composition of the total audience between the two Internet-based samples and when compared with MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer.

The complete paper, Measurement of Magazine Readership via the Internet, is available for your review.

Restoring Credibility to Sunday Magazine Measurement in the U.S.
by Julian Bain, MRI Chief Research Officer and Rebecca McPheters, McPheters & Company

Nationally syndicated Sunday magazines supplements, such as Parade and USA Weekend, are unique in that their distribution differs from that of traditional magazines, and they are almost always co-branded with the logo of the local carrier paper through which they are distributed. While more than 900 different newspapers carry one or the other of these two publications, many consumers assume their local papers produce these magazines and they’re unaware that they have national distribution. The current practice for measuring the audience of magazine supplements has been to attribute the readership of their carrier papers to the magazines themselves. However, industry discomfort with this technique has grown and the general perception is that the audiences for these publications are overstated. While the words to best describe Sunday magazines in a readership survey have been debated for years, no information had been gathered on how consumers themselves think of these publications. These issues have contributed to the challenge of measuring Sunday magazines appropriately.

In a 2002 ARF meeting, Parade proposed a series of steps to establish best practices for Sunday magazine measurement and to help move the industry towards resolution. The Parade initiative involved:

• A Nomenclature Study to determine the appropriate words to describe these publications. An MRI-conducted study determined that the most appropriate wording to use when describing Sunday magazines to consumers is "magazine in the Sunday paper."
• A Carrier Paper Study to determine whether carrier paper identification affected measured audience. An MRI-conducted study showed that carrier paper identification is essential to the appropriate measurement of Sunday magazines.

When results of the Nomenclature and Carrier Paper Studies were presented to the ARF in January 2003, Parade proposed the next step: a study conducted by MRI and co-funded by Parade and USA Weekend to determine the relationship between audiences of Parade and USA Weekend to those of their respective carrier papers. This study was endorsed by the ARF and the Media Ratings Council. The study uses two surveys:

• A mail survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 3,000 that will measure the readership of Parade and USA Weekend, as well as key demographics. This survey incorporates both carrier paper identification and the appropriate nomenclature.
• A simultaneous survey of Sunday newspaper readership conducted among a similarly sized replicate sample, in which respondents will be asked about their readership of national newspapers and the local newspapers distributed in their area. This will be used to establish readership of each publication’s carrier papers.

Results are expected soon and will initially be shared with the ARF and the Media Ratings Council. We are excited by the prospect of restoring industry confidence in the audience levels MRI reports for these publications and look forward to having results to share with the industry in 2004.

The complete "Restoring Credibility to Sunday Magazine Measurement in the U.S." paper is available to download from our Web site.

MRI’s Qualitative Measures
by Ted D’Amico, Vice President, Mediamark Research Inc.

Traditionally, a magazine is selected for schedule inclusion on the basis of its cost-efficiency in reaching people who read an average issue of the publication and who are part of a specified target audience (e.g., women 18-49). A person is considered an "average issue reader" if he or she read or looked into any part of a publication during its publication interval. It is a given, however, that not all readers and reading behaviors are equal. To help discriminate among readers, MRI has developed the following 11 qualitative measures:

This paper is the first to use both aggregate and respondent-level data to examine MRI’s qualitative measures. Specifically, a series of analyses were performed to determine:

• The relationship between frequency of reading and each of the other qualitative measures
• The ability of each qualitative measure to discriminate among publications within magazine type
• The relationship among all 11 qualitative measures
• The stability of these measures over time

Among the findings:

• With the exception of "percent out-of-home readers", which is inversely related to reading frequency, each of the other nine qualitative measures increase substantially as a function of frequency of reading
• Among people who read two publications, quantitative measures are substantially higher for the magazine that is read more frequently
• Each of the qualitative measures discriminates among magazines, and most do so even when magazines are analyzed by type

The complete "MRI’s Qualitative Measures" paper is available to download from our Web site.

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BuyingStyles Combined with Life Cycle Data Point to the Whys Behind the Buys

What makes consumers … consume?  According to the October release of MRI’s BuyingStyles data, purchasing behaviors are based on many psychographic factors. BuyingStyles, a battery of 43 statements on a four-point agree/disagree scale, complements Mediamark’s media/product data with information about the attitudes and preferences of shoppers. In addition to targeting consumers using standard demographics, media use and prior product purchasing/consumption data, BuyingStyles’ added insights help marketers understand the "whys" behind purchasing behaviors…to look at the influencers on buying as well as specific behaviors.

"Consumers do not make purchasing decisions in a vacuum," says Michal Galin, MRI deputy research director. "Influencing factors, whether they be family, the desire to follow trends, or the need to save money, affect ways in which people shop." By comparing BuyingStyles with MRI’s Life Cycles segments, which group respondents by age, marital status, and presence of children, we can compare consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing throughout varying "places in life."

INFLUENCES THAT IMPACT PURCHASING

BEHAVIORS OF THE YOUNG AND NOT-SO YOUNG …

Respondents younger than 50 years of age who live alone are the most likely to agree with the statements:

• "I think shopping is a great way to relax."
• "I don't have time to bother clipping or saving coupons."
• "I would pay extra for a product that is consistent with the image I want to convey."

Reading Labels at 50+
The media tell Americans about the importance of healthy eating, students learn about nutrition in health classes and diet is discussed in physicians’ offices nationwide. But only Mature Adults seem to hear the message. The only Life Cycle groups that have a high likelihood of agreeing with, "I always check the ingredients and nutritional content of food products before buying them," are Mature Adults, both those who live alone and those who are married with no children at home.

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