How media vehicles are measured, Gross Rating Points

1. Explain how media vehicles are measured.

In average we can say, that all measurement systems for the different media vehicles are similar from one viewpoint. It is, that most of them are using small group of measured data, and than it is used to find out the most accurate result for the whole audience. Sample size vary from hundreds to tenhundreds.

Television: Measuring companies such as AP Nielsen are selecting a sample group, and ask them to use an extra equipment while they are watching TV. This set top box is than capturing as much as possible data, like what channel is watched by which member of the family, when do they change programmes, which ads are they watching or when do they skip away from an ad to any other channel.

Radio: Radio stations or separate measurement companies distribute a “Radio Diary”, and ask the selected amount of people, or everybody who purchases the diary to fill in the various data, like what time what programme do they listen, which ads do they love or hate, music they love or not, etc.

Magazines and newspapers:

· Recent reading: An interviewer shows a set of magazines one after the other to the sample persons, and ask if they have read the particular paper in the selected past period of time.

· Frequency of reading: Same as above with the difference, that the interviewer is not asking only if someone have read the magazine, but also is asking that how many different issues of it (for example, if a magazine is weekly, than we can ask, that how many weeks did someone see it in the last 4 weeks).

· Yesterday reading: An interviewer is asking the sample group about the few popular local newspapers to find out how many of a set of people is reading which.

Internet: Wide variety set of data is measured by companies like Nielsen or Alexa, through specific add on softwares.

Out-of-Home (billboards, road vehicles, sandwich-mans): Measurement can be done most of times via traffic measurements.

2. Compare reach and frequency.

Reach: is a number, which shows that how many individual (different) people saw an ad at least once, in a defined relevant period of time. One people is counted only once, so in case we display it in percentage, the maximum can be 100% .

Frequency: is a nr. which shows that how many times people see an ad in a defined relevant period of time. But not a cumulated number (all people each time), but the average nr. for how many times each people see the ad. In formula: “Frequency = total duplicated audience/Reach”.

3. Explain GRP and give an example.

GRP = Gross Rating Points

GRP = Frequency (average nr.) * Reach (measured in %) = all together how many times was an ad seen by everyone who have seen it once or more times.

Must be measured for a specific time interval. It is used to demonstrate “message weight”.

Example:

One same tire ad appearing in Ferrari magazine and Porsche magazine:

Ferrari magazine target reach of rubber burners: 25%

Nr of ads in Ferrari magazine: 10

Porsche magazine target reach of rubber burners: 50%

Nr of ads in Porsche magazine: 2

GRP= 25*10 + 50*2 = 350