At the moment, most market research is done of the basis of target audiences, and they’re a surrogate for consumers. We have got so used to it that we’ve lost sight of what’s implicit in that. The more that media can be delivered on an IP or individual basis and therefore become disaggregated, then that whole way of thinking is going to be challenged. It will become much more about what people do than what audience group they are in. I don’t mean that in a fashionable way, just that the whole concept of target audiences will collapse to a degree; and that’s a real challenge for market research because market research is all about saying that there are 20 million people we are interested in but if we talk to 2,000 of them then that tells us all we need to know. So, that’s going to be really pushed when you’ve got IP TV, and all those kind of things coming along. You will still aggregate people up, but it will be no longer effective to say we are trying to sell Nescafe to housewives with kids. Instead it will be we are trying to sell Nescafe to people who buy our brand and/or one from our competitors, and we know that because we have their club card and other data. They bought 2 months ago, so they are probably running low about now, so they need more exposures. Oh and they usually shop on Sundays, so exposures on Saturday would be ideal. And then you won’t be buying TV against housewives with kids which means for Coronation Street you no longer care about the GRPs it delivers, but you will be valuing individuals based on purchase probabilities. That changes everything in terms of how media works and who should be on the team to deliver and evaluate it
Tim Foley, MD, pointlogic