WEMF eats over the fence of established market research institutes

Should the AG für Medienforschung (WEMF), which currently only conducts research for media currencies, also carry out ad hoc studies for individual press titles, radio or TV stations, websites or cinemas in future? Or are there objections to this? The research organization posed these questions to the media companies in a survey. "The response was extremely good. There were no concerns. On the contrary, the media companies were expressly in favor of us using our expertise from currency research for ad hoc studies," says Wemf Managing Director Marco Bernasconi. So a few weeks ago, the Wemf Board of Directors gave the green light for the opening of the new business area. "This step is also unusual in an international environment: no industry research organization has ever been active in this field before," says Bernasconi.

From copy testing to customer panel outsourcing

It is therefore now possible to commission all forms of ad hoc studies from Wemf, from copy tests to image or national usage studies to comparisons with competitor media. In addition, publishers who already have their own customer panels can outsource their support and surveys to Wemf and have them supplemented by surveys of non-customers. Bernasconi estimates the market potential in Switzerland in this area at around CHF 4 million.

Wemf can "draw from the full"

Bernasconi cites the need of the media companies as the primary reason for the new business. "Until now, we were able to tell publishers where they stood and how they were developing based on the currency. But we were the wrong place to say why consumers behave one way or another," says the Wemf Managing Director. Instead, customers have always had to turn to commercial institutions, with the disadvantage that they had to brief them from scratch and inform them about their own positioning as well as their own market and competitive environment. "We already have all this knowledge in-house. We can draw on the full potential," says Bernasconi.

Currency and ad hoc research separated by personnel

However, Wemf will not set up its own field resources, but will work together with a market research institute (see box "Quality control"). It is also certain that Wemf will not be involved in strategic consulting. "We will only tell customers why a situation is the way it is, but not what should be done or improved. Because we want to remain neutral." The Managing Director does not believe that Wemf could lose credibility because of the new activity. "This was not articulated in any way in the publisher survey," he says. Moreover, Wemf provides a "Chinese wall" between currency and ad hoc research in terms of organization and personnel (see box "Link-Know-how").

Markus Knöpfli

Quality control comes first

Marco Bernasconi does not yet want to disclose the name of the institute with which Wemf will carry out the ad hoc research, as it first has to complete some pilot studies. "We want to be sure that processes, quality and reliability are guaranteed," he says. One thing is clear, however: Link and Demoscope are out of the question, as Wemf is already working with the two institutes on MACH 3. "We deliberately ensure a certain distribution of power with our contractors," explains Bernasconi. (mk)

With link know-how against Link & Co

Shortly before the summer break, Wemf announced that Jella Hoffmann would be joining Wemf as Head of Production from September 2012. "Wemf is delighted to be able to bring Jella Hoffmann into the research department in addition to her well-founded specialist knowledge," wrote Wemf at the time, thereby also hinting at the new business area. Hoffmann, who was responsible for media and online research at Link, will build up ad hoc research as deputy head of research at Wemf - and thus compete against Link & Co. (mk)