BusinessWeek recently revisited a cover story from the May 2, 2005 issue titled “Blogs Will Change Your Business.” The updated article looks closely at the predictions it made in 2005 about the impact of blogging on business and tells us what they got right and wrong. In 2005, the magazine predicted that mainstream media would “take over vast commercial stretches of the blogosphere.” We know they missed that one, with influential sites like Engadget and Techcrunch earning millions of readers. The magazine also failed to predict the emergence of other social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the voice that social media would give both consumers and corporate employees.

Unlike in 2005, now both consumers and employees are networking online, often with each other. Corporate blogs are no longer just for executives and many executive blogs are viewed only as corporate PR. Consumers continue to voice their opinion about the products, brands and services they use, but now businesses have the ability to listen closely. In the end, the updated article is re-titled “Social Media Will Change Your Business,” but the new article is lighter on predictions. Perhaps this is a sign that even the experts are unsure what the future holds for the impact of social media on business.

Tags: cgm, social media

What do the three things in this title have in common? That they are mythical? Perhaps, but let’s just stick to - Great minds have spent years searching for them with no tangible solution.

For us Internet people the GRP (Gross Rating Point) is a bit of a mythical beast. We hear about it referred to as part of offline media buys all the time but, despite the efforts of many groups, we have yet to see it really catch on. So what is a GRP? Well according to the AMA:

“A measure of the total amount of the advertising exposures produced by a specific media vehicle or a media schedule during a specific period of time. It is expressed in terms of the rating of a specific media vehicle (if only one is being used) or the sum of all the ratings of the vehicles included in a media schedule. It includes any audience duplication and is equal to the reach of a media schedule multiplied by the average frequency of the schedule.”

Although Wikipedia is probably a bit more useful here:

“GRP (short for Gross Rating Point) is the sum of ratings achieved by a specific media vehicle or schedule. It represents the percentage of the target audience reached by an advertisement. If the advertisement appears more than once, the GRP figure represents the sum of each individual GRP. In the case of a TV advertisement that is aired 5 times reaching 50% of the target audience, it would have 250 GRP = 5 x 50% — ie, GRPs = frequency x % reach.

Gross Rating Points (GRP) measure the total volume of delivery of your message to your target audience. It is equal to the percent Reach to your target audience times the Frequency of exposure. To arrive at your total Gross Rating Points, add the individual ratings for each media vehicle you are using. You may also get GRP by dividing your gross Impressions by the population base and multiplying the answer by 100.”

The concept of the Internet GRP has become somewhat popular to discuss again. Particularly with the growing strength of online video, media buyers are looking for a familiar metric that allows them to buy across media in a transparent way.

As clients begin to ask for it more, Nielsen Online is starting to have a lively debate internally to figure out our direction forward. Should we have GRPs as part of VideoCensus? Should we include a cross-media GRP? If we do this, will agencies be happy and publishers be annoyed? Is there a place for GRPs in NetView, or maybe even AdRelevance? At the end of the day, is there a better metric that will capture the reach of TV and the targeting of the Internet and put them on par in a useful way ?

So I would like to formally open up the discussion – I would expect we’ll hear feedback on this blog from such luminaries as Charley Shoemaker (product manager for VideoCensus), Pete Blackshaw (who runs Digital Strategic Services) and Ken Cassar (my evil twin who runs our advertiser research practice). But I would also like to hear from you – after all, if there is popular sentiment to provide this metric, we will.

Enough of the reaching out to the people…here’s my perspective:

I’ve spent 5+ years thinking about online GRPs and recently I’ve become more outspoken about my distaste for the concept. This has been an evolving process for me. I started my thinking with “what’s the big deal, it’s only reach multiplied by frequency”. The more that I’ve worked with the concept, the more complicated it becomes, particularly when you begin to consider the differences between TV and online measurement (that is a post for a later time…).

So, why am I such a zealot about this? I’ll be covering that topic in weekly posts for the next month or so. Here are my top 3 reasons, and again, I’ll go into each of these with a separate post:

1. GRPs tell you very little about an actual campaign (Isn’t the net of reach and frequency just impressions?)

2. GRPs do not take into account the efficiencies brought about by Internet delivery (How do I measure waste and make it relevant across media? Targeted rating point, I think not!)

3. GRPs will not be comparable across media (What is the equivalent of a 6 minute qualifier online?)

You’re going to get a month of what I have to say, so let’s hear what you have to say. Send me a note or leave a comment in the comments section below.

Tags: gross rating point, GRP, online

Barry Diller got the go ahead a couple of weeks ago to split Interactive Corp into five companies. HSN, Lending Tree, Interval International, Ask/Match, and Ticketmaster will go their separate ways, now that objections from Liberty Media have been overcome.

So, now that these companies can go their separate ways, does it make sense for them to stay in touch? A quick look at our NetView data from April 2008 suggests that they shouldn’t tear up each other’s phone numbers, because there appears to be some benefit to the integration of units. In April of 2008, visitors to Ask, HSN, Lending Tree, Match and Ticketmaster seemed to be a lot more likely to use IAC’s sister properties than any random online user.

Take Ask.com, for example. In April 2008, 22% of online users visited Ask at least once. For those that also visited HSN, Ask enjoyed 32 percent reach. It was 34% for those visiting Lending Tree, 35% for those visiting Match, and 33% for those visiting Ticketmaster. Taking a simple average across the board (measurement sciences, avert your eyes!), IAC visitors were 52% more likely to have visited Ask than any random online user. More strikingly, IAC visitors were 226% more likely to visit Lending tree, and 207% more likely to visit Match.com than the overall online population (see table below)

So, does this mean that IAC has made a mistake, by splitting up? Not necessarily. IAC had certainly allotted house ad inventory to pitching its own properties (one analysis that we did a year or so ago had the number at about 20%). While this house advertising might have been effective, it may have also had an opportunity cost (lost ad dollars from outside parties). Secondly, there is no reason that the firms cannot work together in the future as separate companies. Further, allowing each company to focus on its own business without regard to its sister companies may allow them to be more responsive to the market.

So, is this the right move? I dunno. I won’t be betting against Mr. Diller.

Tags: Barry Diller, IAC, Liberty Media

I found an interesting Malayan proverb on the label of the Honest Tea I drank for lunch today: “Don’t think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.”

The proverb appeals to me because it gets to the core of what we do at Nielsen Online. Determining if crocodiles are lurking, regardless of how placid the water looks, is similar to how marketers and media researchers seek to understand their online customers, stay steps ahead of their competition, and anticipate the next big thing that could turn their business models upside down. Everyone sees the same market, but not everyone is a market winner.

This has everything to do with why we are launching the Nielsen Online blog: “Connecting the Dots.” We have a bright team of analysts and researchers at Nielsen Online collectively working with our clients to connect the many dots of data we have to answer their specific strategic questions. But each and every one of these analysts is also developing a unique perspective on how the online market is unfolding. Many of these perspectives are shared with the industry via press releases, events and presentations and webinars, but we’d like to give this team an opportunity to more regularly, and seamlessly, share their insights and perspectives with you. Here are the kinds of topics we expect to be addressing in the days, weeks and months ahead:

- Is the “long tail” going to continue to be the tail?
- How is the meteoric rise in consumer-generated media transforming the search market – and vice versa?
- What relatively unknown sites are creating best-of-breed experiences that are confounding the experts?
- How is the blogosphere transforming the ability to track satisfaction and brand loyalty?
- Why will online advertising continue to grow at healthy double-digit rates for at least the next 5 years?

Welcome to “Connecting the Dots,” where we hope to share online market perspectives that give you an appreciation for what may not be apparent from the water’s surface.

Tags: analytics, internet, online research, web