Hidden contacts
Print media have a major advantage over other media: users pick them up more than once. This generates additional exposure. However, these instances remain unpublished.
The WEMF currency system for recording the readership of print media assumes that readers only pick up a print product once per issue. However, this is not the case. As print titles - depending on the category - are relatively long-lived, the same issue of a title normally has several chances of being used. This is shown by the pick-up analyses of the WEMF MA Leader study. In contrast to MACH Basic or MACH Consumer, MA Leader also provides information on how often an issue of a title is picked up for reading or browsing by its readership on average. Depending on the type of title, the majority of pick-up values are between 1.5 and 2.5 per issue, not including the usage-intensive TV guides. The news magazine L'Hebdo in French-speaking Switzerland has the highest pick-up value of the titles included in the MA Leader 2013 at 2.6. The front-runner in German-speaking Switzerland is the wine magazine Vinum with a pick-up value of 2.4. While the daily newspapers with subscriptions have an average of 1.5 pick-ups per issue and reader, the values for Sunday newspapers are 1.7 and for magazines 2 pick-ups per issue (see chart).
Hidden achievements: Example Weltwoche
According to MACH Basic 2014-2, Weltwoche has 231,000 readers. The MA Leader 2013 shows a pick-up value of 1.9 for the magazine. This means that Weltwoche readers pick up the title on average 1.9 times per issue to read or leaf through it. Taking this pick-up value into account, Weltwoche's performance increases from 231,000 readers to around 440,000 contacts per issue. The latter remain unpublished. And the reported price per 1,000 readers of CHF 67 (TLP) is halved to around CHF 35 per 1,000 contacts (CPM).
Beaten below value
In contrast to TV commercials, ads in print media have more contact opportunities than readers or viewers. While a TV commercial is irreversible once it has been broadcast for a fee, print ads have a potential impact over a longer period of time that can be tracked with the pick-ups. The current currency of print media therefore underestimates a large number of contacts. In other words, the values reported and included in the media programs are at the lower end of the interpretable performance range - with a lot of upside potential.
Otto Meier
