Media: A Moment with Marquis

by Simon Marquis, the chairman of ZenithOptimedia, Campaign 31-Mar-06

The IPA's long-awaited Touchpoints survey got off to a promising start last week with a well-attended launch.

Touchpoints will be supported in the industry for a number of
reasons.

Sensibly, the IPA has made sure that plenty of different organisations
have a vested interest in its success: media owners as well as agencies,

creative as well as media. It also has the backing of the World

Federation of Advertisers.

Touchpoints will be able to plug into existing media research sources
(Barb, National Readership Survey, Postar) creating a world-first
network of integrated media research.

And Touchpoints will succeed because it is good. The "hub" survey (based
on 5,010 respondents with self-completion questionnaires and PDA
diaries) has many riches to plunder and adds new insight into people's
media behaviour.

But the aspect of Touchpoints that is likely to make the most
significant impact on the way advertising is planned is its focus on the
dimension of time. Touchpoints tells us, for example, when during the
day or week people shop, relax, multitask, gather information, even what
sort of mood they are in. Add to this their media usage and brands will
have clear opportunities for "owning" particular times of day and
occasions. My hunch is that this will spawn new and different sorts of
media plan and perhaps even new and different sorts of creative
treatment based around points in time.

One wonders why there hasn't been more of this (apart from the absence
of Touchpoints). It may be that concentration into specific time slots
tends to restrict campaign coverage - though who cares, if it is more
effective? Maybe it's because it can be more expensive in
cost-per-thousand terms, though again, does this matter if it works
better?

Touchpoints has been spoken of as something of a Holy Grail in media
planning. Seasoned practitioners are rightly suspicious of anything
claiming to solve all the mysteries of the known world and we must be
careful not to burden Touchpoints with too great expectations.
Nevertheless, it should be warmly received. It set the bar high but, in
spite of some technical hitches along the way, seems to have vaulted it.
It is now up to the media planning fraternity to use it with dash and
inventiveness and advertisers to open their minds to its
possibilities.

I'm optimistic. Two years from now, our industry award-winners will be
crediting Touchpoints in their acceptance speeches.

How people really use media, page 26.