by Dave Zornow
Cable Avails, November 1997

Ed Carter wants to buy a new car. He's had his eye on a sporty red roadster with enough options to choke a commodities trader. But Ed has a problem. When he goes to visit his local car dealership to strike a deal, the salesperson tells him he can't buy it. "We've changed our media target to 18-34," says the salesperson, "and you don't fit the demo."

Pretty ridiculous? Of course it is. But so is a media plan which ignores potential buyers that don't fit standard age/sex demographics. Buyers who only use demos to target consumers are likely to miss potential consumers and over deliver lots of people who will never become customers. It also under values the media properties being sold because sales reps don't get full credit for the audiences their networks are delivering.

Demographic targeting tries to define consumers using age and sex as a surrogate for other behaviors like purchasing habits. Wouldn't it be better to use product usage data in conjunction with quantitative audience estimates to better target likely consumers?

Let's revisit Ed's car dealer dilemma. Instead of targeting Adults 25-54, the dealer now uses information about previous Buick purchasers to define his target. A look at Mediamark's Spring 97 data on Buick buyers shows that although almost half (47 percent) of Buick purchasers are 25-54, only six percent of Adults 25-54 buy Buicks. More importantly, restricting the buy to Persons 25-54 leaves out the 53 percent of adult Buick buyers who are older than 55 and younger than 25.

Applying each network's composition of Buick buyers to its Adult 18+ Nielsen people meter VPVH gives us a better idea of the viewing habits of the true target audience. For example, multiplying The Nashville Network's composition of adults who bought a Buick (eight percent) by its 2nd Quarter 97 primetime Adult 18+ VPVH (1.368) yields a Buick buyer VPVH of .11. Although this product purchaser VPVH is considerably lower than TNN's Adult 25-54 VPVH, it does a better job demonstrating the value of The Nashville Network by moving the network from 27th place in the Adult 25-54 VPVH ranking to second place among all networks in its concentration of Buick-buying adults.

One of the advantages of combining product usage data with audience viewing information is an increased stability for both the qualitative and quantitative estimates. Instead of using narrow demos with smaller sample sizes, this technique uses total adults for a larger sample and a more stable VPVH. It also offers a more reliable qualitative number because these estimates aren't constrained by age or sex criteria, either.

Combining qualitative and quantitative measures has value outside of the new car showroom, too. To reach decision makers for buying cellular phones, you would probably include networks like CNN, ESPN and CNBC. But how about Bravo, E!, HGTV and TV Food? Applying MRI 's composition of cell phone decision makers to Nielsen's Adult 18+ cable prime time VPVHs brings new channels to the buy that may not have been previously considered. CNBC and Bravo tie for first (compared to a 29th and 25th place respective rankings against Adults 25-54) and The Learning Channel takes second place. E!, (up from 7th place), A&E (formerly #18), Home and Garden (up from 13th place) and TV Food (up from 20th among Adults 25-54) are among the networks in the top ten.

Using product usage data combined with audience information can sometimes produce insights that diverge from the conventional wisdom. STP gas treatment, the automotive after market product, is usually thought of as a Male 25-54 sports-oriented target. Although MRI's Spring 97 study confirms this supposition with a Men 25-54 index of 115, this demo only accounts for 34 percent of STP purchasers. Surprisingly, almost half (46 percent) of all STP consumers are women .

Nielsen reports that the top five networks in primetime in the 2nd Quarter 1997 for Men 25-54 were ESPN2, TLC, ESPN, Sci-Fi and TNT. Applying each network's percent composition of STP purchasers against its second quarter Nielsen adult VPVH changes the top five finishers to Sci-Fi (ranked #4 against Men 25-54), TV Food (up from #22), ESPN2 (formerly #1), FX (#13) and Family (#25). The revised list of top networks still has a male skew (ESPN2, Sci-Fi) but also include channels where women purchasers are likely to view, too (Family and Food).

These examples show how qualitative data can be used to enhance television viewing data to better define media targets. However, sometimes the actual target is not as obvious as the secondary research might indicate. For example, if a media plan is designed to induce new consumers to try a product, a schedule which reaches current purchasers will only be "preaching to the converted" and not achieving its intended goal. In some cases, the primary goal of the plan is to affect the distribution channel (that is, car dealers, retailers, etc) and not consumers. Also, there be instances where some plans intentionally ignore demo groups which are not brand-conscious and less likely to be influenced by advertising.

Merging qualitative and quantitative data isn't a new idea. But these kinds of analyses can be used to demonstrate the benefits of media properties might be overlooked in a standard demographic buy. ##

Dave Zornow is President/TNG Research, a media research consultancy and applications development company that works with media sellers and research providers.

This article was originally published in November 1997 by Cable Avails magazine.

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