Reach is not everything

Traditional media planning still operates predominantly with quantitative figures. This is based on the reach or the number of contacts of a medium. At best, consumption data of the users of this medium are also taken into account, but that is all. In particular, the quality of contact is not taken into account. Whether a user turns to the medium intensively or only incidentally, what significance it has in his everyday life, what credibility its content has, whether he finds the advertising entertaining, informative or disturbing - such qualitative factors are excluded from the reach thinking. Although the extent to which the editorial environment of a medium influences the advertising impact is disputed in advertising research, this also has to do with the fact that advertising impact as a whole is a highly complex phenomenon that largely defies simple causal explanations. What is certain, however, is that people have a qualitative perception of the media they use. This is directly related to the form and content of this medium, and advertising is a part of this.

Advertising on smartphones also bothers young people

Since last year, the MediaBrands intermedia study has been tracking how differentiated the perception of media brands is. In this study, 3200 Swiss-German citizens are periodically asked about the use and qualitative perception of Swiss media brands. The study not only helps media companies to develop their brands, but also provides advertisers with decision-making aids for qualitative media planning. One of the findings is that advertising in the various media meets with very different levels of acceptance: In print media, advertising is predominantly perceived as informative, while advertising on smartphones annoys most people. Surprisingly, age hardly plays a role in this assessment: even the generation that grew up with cell phones appreciates advertising on smartphones almost as little as older people. However, there are indications that a certain habituation effect is spreading. Acceptance of mobile advertising has improved somewhat since 2013. However, the gap to other media, especially print, is still enormous.

Consumers put together media menus according to their personal taste
The study also shows that modern media consumers not only combine different media to create a "menu", but that there are also clear hierarchies within this menu. More than three quarters state that they have a favorite medium. Not only is this medium used particularly intensively, but it is also held in high esteem. In addition to this indispensable core medium, most media consumers combine other media brands that they also use regularly and that fulfill complementary functions. These "relevant sets" are of particular interest to media planners, as the advertising impact can be significantly increased by using a complete set and the resulting synergies. MediaBrands 2014 identifies around 20 relevant sets in German-speaking Switzerland and six economic regions that represent specific target groups.

Use of a medium is not synonymous with appreciation
Strong, valuable brands are primarily characterized by the appreciation that customers have for them. This appreciation determines whether customers remain loyal to a brand and whether they are prepared to pay a premium over a competitor brand. This is just as true for media brands - even or especially in the age of free media. MediaBrands shows very impressively how differentiated consumers assess media brands: Frequent use of a medium does not necessarily mean that it is considered particularly credible or competent.

Around three million German-speaking Swiss have tuned into the RTL television channel at least once in the course of a quarter, but this does not mean that its audience considers the channel to be particularly likeable. Although it scores highly in terms of entertainment value, it is below average in terms of likeability and criteria such as credibility and relevance. NZZ am Sonntag, on the other hand, only reaches just under 800,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland in one quarter. However, its readers almost unanimously find the brand likeable, credible and competent.

Contact quality highest with print media

Qualitative dimensions such as likeability, solidarity, credibility, etc. determine the strength of a brand. Strong media brands achieve a high rating on as many quality dimensions as possible and users feel connected to them. As a result, the brands are held in high esteem by their audience. The advertising content also benefits from this, as it is perceived as part of the media product. MediaBrands expresses this quality of contact in the form of the "Brand Performance Value" (BPV). This is an index value that summarizes brand strength and loyalty as well as acceptance of advertising in one value. In media planning, the BPV can be used as a qualitative value in addition to the pure consideration of reach.

If the BPV of media brands is converted to their distribution channels, a clear picture emerges (see chart below): The printed daily or weekly newspaper has a clear advantage over digital media in particular. This is not only due to the fact that advertising acceptance is greater in print, but also that printed media are generally held in higher esteem. In addition, the bond with the print medium is stronger than with a digital medium. In the case of weekly newspapers, which have the highest BPV, there is also the fact that people have more time and leisure to read at the weekend than during the week. This also benefits contact with advertisements, which are more likely to be noticed in a relaxed atmosphere.

In view of the millions of advertising dollars that have been shifted from print to electronic and digital advertising media in recent years, it almost seems as if the advertising industry has overshot the mark here. And this is doubly annoying for the media companies: not only have lucrative advertising segments such as classifieds moved irretrievably to the Internet, but they can only develop their brand values to a limited extent in their own digital channels. The advantage of a print brand disappears when its content is consumed via a digital channel. Whether this changes in the future will depend not least on whether media companies succeed in maintaining proven journalistic quality standards in the digital space. In view of the increasing number of journalistic errors in online media, doubts in this regard are justified.

René Grossenbacher