Marshall hails Touchpoints as potential media currency in BrandRepublic.tv interview

by Staff Brand Republic 08-Jul-08, 08:40

LONDON - Jim Marshall, chairman of Starcom UK, says the IPA's cross-media Touchpoints initiative is so important and far reaching that it has the ability to become a media currency, in an exclusive interview on BrandRepublic.tv.

In the latest show on BrandRepublic.tv, Marshall said: "It has the ability to become a media currency. Because it unifies all the other media research and I think the modern world is about looking at how you communicate across media and across platforms."

In conversation with Brand Republic's head of digital content Philip Smith, Marshall and the IPA's research director Lynne Robinson insist advertisers and agencies should sit up and take notice of Touchpoints because of its focus on the modern consumer, their media habits and behaviour.

One of the key findings is the behaviour of the 15- to 24-year-old age group, Marshall said. They behave very differently to other groups now and this is an indication of how people will behave in the future.

Marshall said that "traditional" media has nothing to fear from the findings that tackle the rise of social networking for the first time since the project was launched in 2006.

BrandRepublic.tv is a series of monthly video shows which, as part of the PPA award-winning BrandRepublic.com, are produced in association with the IPA and are sponsored by Thinkbox.

An archive of previous shows including interviews with the IPA's President Moray McLennan and Stephen Woodford can be found at BrandRepublic.tv.

Comments

Jeremy Lee - 08/07/2008

I can't see this ever happening - aside from there being too many vested interests to change the status quo, surely Touchpoints provides little more than fuse existing TGI data with existing audience trends?

BRIAN JACOBS - 08/07/2008

Touchpoints is a wonderful initiative and just the sort of thing a trade body like the IPA should spend its time on. But it's a planning tool not a buying currency. Buying currencies are by definition dynamic, and need to include more detailed data on each individual medium than can ever be achieved within a cross-media study. As for TGI fusion - some of us have been there, done that and still bear the scars!

Jeremy Lee - 09/07/2008

Also I can hardly see agencies throwing away their proprietary planning tools in favour of using Touchpoints because they are always banging on about how this differentiates themselves from one another. Unless Starcom would like to lead by example, of course.