Black magic social research
The disadvantages of the various poster research models are far from over
The disadvantages of the various poster research models are far from being overcomeBy Wolfgang KoschnickEffect research on posters remains a matter of luck. Nevertheless, there are new approaches in poster research from Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. But even they suffer from the fact that the reliability of the measurement data is not beyond all doubt.
While the British Postar model causes confusion among laypersons (WW 44/00), the Austrian poster rating system (PWÖ) shines through its simplicity: a procedure that meets the interests of the client and also benefits the poster space as an advertising medium.
In a first step, all of the approximately 85,000 areas available in Austria were assessed according to their quality using the same model. Depending on the federal state, between 10 and 20 percent of the areas were so poor that they were taken off the market. They did not meet the minimum requirements. Now, there are only around 71,000 surfaces in Austria that meet the objectified quality criteria of the PWÖ and bear its seal.
The following criteria for defining a location played a role in the evaluation of the Austrian sites according to a standardized procedure: visibility and distance, distance to the road, position of the board in relation to the viewer, frequency, speed, frequency factor. The model has already been described in WerbeWoche (WW 27/00).
The PPI also allows
Splits by region
The poster value of a site is a daily contact figure weighted according to the factors of visibility and site size. The basic PWÖ formula is based on the multiplication of the frequency with the technical observation time (= visibility time divided by 1.5 seconds) of a poster site, reduced by the frequency factor and related to the average of all categorized sites.
The poster value provides data on the performance of a poster space. In addition to the PWÖ, leading advertising agencies have developed the Poster Performance Indicator (PPI) as a planning tool in collaboration with the media agency Turcsanyi Media Consulting. It allows a campaign to be planned according to poster points, which, like the Gross Rating Points (GRP) familiar from media planning, represent an indicator of reach and remembered contacts.
The PPI is a comprehensible model that makes it possible to make the daily contact opportunities collected as part of the PWÖ more comprehensible and at the same time to combine them with the reach figures available for other media.
In the PPI, the frequencies of all poster sites collected as part of the PWÖ are linked with the current poster values from the Austrian media analysis. The calculation of gross contacts in the PPI is based on the frequency measurements (= guaranteed contacts). Splits and filtering by region are also possible. The calculation of reach is based on the values of the 1999 Media Analysis, which provides information for a sample of 18,000 respondents on how many days out of seven they normally pass a billboard.
This information is used to calculate reach for target groups and federal states. This results in a performance value curve for the poster and the specific poster campaign.
This can also be defined in poster points (PP) per shilling or per average contact. The PP determine a value that results from the combination of reach and remembered contacts. The number of PWÖ gross contact opportunities defines the PP and describes the effectiveness of a guaranteed contact. The net reach can be read from accumulation curves calculated from the media analysis.
The PWÖ has thus created the possibility of a national poster evaluation without having to resort to data from its own survey. But when it comes to developing reach values and personal data in the second step, the PWÖ has found nothing more than a makeshift solution by drawing on existing continuous surveys and weighting the PWÖ frequency figures down to 13 percent "memorable contacts" on this basis.
However, since there are no "true ranges", the result is not wrong. But this is not the ideal solution. This has yet to be found. You can cross a body of water by building a raft or nailing boards together to form a bridge. Only the Golden Gate Bridge is truly unique.
There are only a few satisfactory solutions to this problem worldwide. But there are some. The German Poster Media Analysis (PMA) has developed a method that is based on survey data on "recall of routes traveled" and leads to reasonable values. However, it also has weaknesses, which meant that recall values had to be "validated". In fact, empirically measured values were corrected by calibration. And weightings to correct empirically collected data are fundamentally different from the justified weighting of visibility factors, for example. Nevertheless, the model has become so widely accepted in Germany that it will probably soon be included in the Media Analysis (MA).
Recall values from surveys have proven to be precarious information in poster research internationally. This even applies to values that were collected specifically for poster research. And of course it applies all the more to values that were collected for a completely different research purpose and used in the specific study.
The Dutch Buitenreclame 2000 lies between the extremes - Postar and PWÖ - and contains elements of single point assessment and mobility analysis. It uses data from the official traffic counts of the Dutch spatial planning authority based on a sample of 120000 respondents per year. From these censuses, the start and end points of the journeys made are known in the Netherlands - but not the journey itself.
Since the census data is
As the "route choice behavior" of the population cannot be used directly for poster research, the market research institute Intomart developed a model. It is based on a sample of 7000 people from the market research institute. A complicated procedure is used to calculate routes for the people in this sample, and they are likely to choose the "easiest" route. Simpler: Probabilities for poster site contacts are calculated from the traffic flows of the official traffic counts. These routes are then transferred to a digital map.
The five Dutch poster companies still in existence at the time of the survey (today there are only four) entered their total of 21,000 billboards into this digital map. In this way, the probable routes taken by passers-by could be linked to the billboards actually present. As everyone who passes by a billboard does not automatically and necessarily come into contact with the posters on it, a number of features were also included in the model to evaluate individual sites, such as the distance from the street or the viewing angle. The Dutch model is therefore also based on a combination of single-point assessment and analysis of mobility behavior.
Are most Dutch posters invisible?
The range of an attack site is defined as "presence in the street". This - not very convincing - definition was already used in the first Summo-Buitenreclame study in 1990. Because this very broad definition means that every person who simply passes a poster site is included in the reach value, the definition was changed in the most recent study and visibility factors were taken into account. This was done through observation.
However, the Dutch visibility model proves to be a farce, even though the market researchers went to great lengths. In a country like the Netherlands, where everyone travels a lot by bike, monitoring the visibility of bumpers poses a particular problem. If someone is cycling a route, they cannot simultaneously make notes about the "zichtbaarheid van buitenreclame" without endangering traffic. So the routes were covered by tandem. The observer sat at the front and someone at the back diligently noted down what the rider at the front saw.
In order to determine the visibility of the individual poster sites, the field workers of the Intomart Institute were instructed to follow or drive along the paths known from the route selection model and search for poster sites. This is an extremely suggestive procedure that in no way corresponds to the natural passage past billboards. On the contrary.
People who normally walk or drive through the streets are not looking for advertising space. They have other things on their minds, and billboards are the least of them. But the astonishing thing was: although the field workers were explicitly required to look for billboards, they stated that they had not seen more than
32 percent of all posts could be seen. Are Holland's posters so cleverly hidden that they cannot be found even with a targeted search?
No, but many of them are used on both sides and are positioned at an angle of 90 degrees to the two streams of traffic on a street, so that in principle they can be seen from both sides. However, most pedestrians only ever use the side facing their own traffic flow.
The whole visibility model of the Dutch is therefore useless. However, the use of annual traffic count data for the production of digital maps is groundbreaking. However, in what other country in the world are there new traffic counts every year that can be used for the poster usage behavior of the entire population?
The Buitenreclame 2000 provides data on the evaluation of individual sites in reverse order, so to speak. Since we have all the information on the location, location and visibility characteristics of each individual location, we can use the regression analysis to calculate how and to what extent each individual factor contributes to the overall success of the locations - "could", it should be said. You could, if the Dutch visibility model were worth anything.
Memories of the
Eye contact with the poster
For a long time, it seemed as if Germany had found the philosopher's stone with poster media analysis (PMA). Today, however, skepticism prevails. The PMA is a single-source file for large billboards, city light posters (CLP), full columns and general sites, which also collects data on consumer habits and interests - in other words, a media analysis enriched with consumer data. It was commissioned by the Fachverband Aussenwerbung (FAW) in 1994 in order to provide media planning with personalized poster usage data and thus make the poster medium plannable. Today, the PMA is the most important planning tool for the strategic framework planning of posters in Germany. It is about to be included in the media analysis.
Methodologically, the PMA is based on the "poster query based on remembered paths" designed by mathematician Gunda Opfer in a personal interview with memory aids. In addition to information on consumer habits and interests in 40 product areas, a brief survey of television usage was also included, resulting in a multidimensional planning file that combines information on the performance of traditional poster advertising media with other target group characteristics.
The PMA asks about the memory of eye contact with certain places of attack on the basis of the outward and return journeys made as well as sections of these journeys. The question is based on the reason why the respondents were out of the house. The frequency of occasions, the outward and return journeys made and the means of transport used are used to gather initial information on mobility and the frequency of contact and to support the memory of certain sections of the journey. This is followed by a query of the advertising media remembered on the individual sections and the assignment to certain types of advertising media with the help of colored illustrations.
Performance values also apply
for partial occupancy
The PMA provides all performance values required for media planning for seven days and for all existing poster advertising media. These performance values can be extrapolated to the occupancy unit of a decade, i.e. an average of 10.5 days. As the number of poster sites seen by a person was included, the performance values can also be calculated for partial occupancy of an advertising medium type. The following performance values can be used in planning for full occupancy or partial occupancy:
? Widest circle of viewers (WSK): the total number of people who have seen a billboard at all.
? Reach (in percent and in millions): all persons in any population who have had at least one contact with an advertising medium of the respective type within the last decade.
? Opportunity to see (OTS): the average number of contacts a reached person has had with a touchpoint within the last decade.
? Gross Rating Points (GRP): the total number of contacts achieved as a percentage. GRPs are a planning value for advertising pressure and are calculated by multiplying reach (as a percentage) and OTS (average contacts).
? Total contacts in millions: the total number of contacts achieved with a billboard in absolute figures.
? Thousand contact price (CPM) in DM.
The additional survey of whether or not a poster contact took place at the respondent's place of residence allows a differentiation between contacts at the location and commuter contacts. All performance values can be calculated with the PC-DAP-Plakat planning program for all demographically and consumption-specifically definable target groups surveyed in the media analysis. Opfer sees the PMA as merely an "instrument for rough planning".
Even the PMA model cannot capture everything
The great enthusiasm of media planners has given way to an equally great and growing skepticism. One of the main objections is that the poster contacts reported in the MA are only suitable for intermedia comparisons to a limited extent. In poster advertising, the query of unsupported remembered eye contacts with certain poster sites corresponds to the identification of advertising media contact opportunities without the inclusion of an editorial component - the contact is therefore defined extremely harshly.
A validation study commissioned by the Outdoor Advertising Association in 1997 showed that the "poster survey based on remembered routes" does not record a large proportion of the frequency of passage or the actual eye contact with poster sites. This "underclaim", which is unavoidable due to the methodology used, also varies depending on the poster advertising medium. The forgetting rate of actually observed sites increases with the number of poster sites along the route as well as with the length of the described routes and the density of the poster sites.
The PMA therefore works with correctly recalled performance values that represent only 59 percent of the actual passage frequency and 78 percent of the actually noticed and known advertising points. The MA therefore shows contact values that do not do full justice to the actual advertising performance of the poster. And depending on the number and density of sites, poster types are sometimes more and sometimes less affected.
Consequence of the validation study: The unsupported remembered contacts reported in the PMA are subsequently "topped up" by the additional poster contacts that were also observed but forgotten. To this end, a calibration factor of 1.27 was derived for towns with a population of 100,000 or more in order to calculate the actual contact performance of the poster sites. On average, the PMA shows around 13 percent fewer poster contacts than actually took place. Gunda Opfer takes a relaxed view of this: The "hard" empirical values go "more in the direction of advertising media contact", the validated values "more in the direction of advertising media contact".
Black magic in the
Social research
You can also look at it this way: The measuring accuracy of the PMA is abysmal. There is no clearer way of saying with this wild calculation that the empirical contact values of the PMA are not much good. An additional 27 percent of the original value must be added to each individual survey value for places with a population of 100,000 or more. Then you get the right result.
However, this form of "calibration" is different from "weighting with visibility coefficients". With weighting, there are empirically verified findings about the visibility and its impairment of a location. The weighting therefore takes into account the actual reduced visibility of a location. PMA calibration, however, is the subsequent correction of a survey error. In other words, the survey method leads to indisputably and indisputably incorrect results. Therefore, the result is corrected. This is the transfer of black magic to empirical social research. It is an attempt to use unsuitable means to rescue a method that produces false results.
In home countries
Poster research modest
All models of poster research currently in use in Europe are either below the methodological level of these four models or use variations of them. Some of the methods that are below this level could be unhesitatingly dismissed as a laughing stock if they were not still of some use in the specific media scene of their country.
Following Postar, PMA, PWÖ and Summo Buitenreclame 2000, efforts are underway in Europe to promote poster research. In Scandinavia, JCDecaux and the More Group (Clear Channel) are developing a new approach that could quickly lead to uniform poster research across Europe. It seems to amount to an adaptation of the British Postar model.
This involves developing a basic module that is identical for all countries and is modified according to national circumstances. In Switzerland, the two poster companies APG and Plakanda/AWI have joined forces to find a new approach to research that is broadly in line with the European trend and will probably lead to an integrated model via job evaluation and mobility analysis.
It is strange that poster research is conducted at a modest level in the home countries of outdoor advertising of all places. In Switzerland at least, efforts are underway to replace the outdated A-value with a more contemporary approach.
Recent approaches to poster research
After the first part of the series (WW 44/00) on the basic problems of the outdoor advertising industry, the second part describes the advantages and disadvantages of more recent approaches, in particular the Austrian, German and Dutch research models.
The trend is towards technical measurementThe trend in the more modern methods of mobility analysis is clearly moving away from the "royal road" of traditional empirical social research - the survey - and towards observation through technical measurement. There are two main reasons for this, each of which sounds quite convincing. Firstly, observation by technical measurement is a method at the same level of accuracy as that practiced in audience research or, more recently, listener research.
The real problems arise beyond the measuring accuracy of the devices, but this has not affected acceptance so far. Secondly, there has been little experience - positive or negative - with technical measurement using methods such as the Geographical Positioning System (GPS) in the field of poster research. However, it has proven its worth in navigation. To date, the technology has only been used by the British Postar. So far, very little is known about the pitfalls of the system in media research. In the meantime, we can hope that it might work.
While the British Postar model causes confusion among laypersons (WW 44/00), the Austrian poster rating system (PWÖ) shines through its simplicity: a procedure that meets the interests of the client and also benefits the poster space as an advertising medium.
In a first step, all of the approximately 85,000 areas available in Austria were assessed according to their quality using the same model. Depending on the federal state, between 10 and 20 percent of the areas were so poor that they were taken off the market. They did not meet the minimum requirements. Now, there are only around 71,000 surfaces in Austria that meet the objectified quality criteria of the PWÖ and bear its seal.
The following criteria for defining a location played a role in the evaluation of the Austrian sites according to a standardized procedure: visibility and distance, distance to the road, position of the board in relation to the viewer, frequency, speed, frequency factor. The model has already been described in WerbeWoche (WW 27/00).
The PPI also allows
Splits by region
The poster value of a site is a daily contact figure weighted according to the factors of visibility and site size. The basic PWÖ formula is based on the multiplication of the frequency with the technical observation time (= visibility time divided by 1.5 seconds) of a poster site, reduced by the frequency factor and related to the average of all categorized sites.
The poster value provides data on the performance of a poster space. In addition to the PWÖ, leading advertising agencies have developed the Poster Performance Indicator (PPI) as a planning tool in collaboration with the media agency Turcsanyi Media Consulting. It allows a campaign to be planned according to poster points, which, like the Gross Rating Points (GRP) familiar from media planning, represent an indicator of reach and remembered contacts.
The PPI is a comprehensible model that makes it possible to make the daily contact opportunities collected as part of the PWÖ more comprehensible and at the same time to combine them with the reach figures available for other media.
In the PPI, the frequencies of all poster sites collected as part of the PWÖ are linked with the current poster values from the Austrian media analysis. The calculation of gross contacts in the PPI is based on the frequency measurements (= guaranteed contacts). Splits and filtering by region are also possible. The calculation of reach is based on the values of the 1999 Media Analysis, which provides information for a sample of 18,000 respondents on how many days out of seven they normally pass a billboard.
This information is used to calculate reach for target groups and federal states. This results in a performance value curve for the poster and the specific poster campaign.
This can also be defined in poster points (PP) per shilling or per average contact. The PP determine a value that results from the combination of reach and remembered contacts. The number of PWÖ gross contact opportunities defines the PP and describes the effectiveness of a guaranteed contact. The net reach can be read from accumulation curves calculated from the media analysis.
The PWÖ has thus created the possibility of a national poster evaluation without having to resort to data from its own survey. But when it comes to developing reach values and personal data in the second step, the PWÖ has found nothing more than a makeshift solution by drawing on existing continuous surveys and weighting the PWÖ frequency figures down to 13 percent "memorable contacts" on this basis.
However, since there are no "true ranges", the result is not wrong. But this is not the ideal solution. This has yet to be found. You can cross a body of water by building a raft or nailing boards together to form a bridge. Only the Golden Gate Bridge is truly unique.
There are only a few satisfactory solutions to this problem worldwide. But there are some. The German Poster Media Analysis (PMA) has developed a method that is based on survey data on "recall of routes traveled" and leads to reasonable values. However, it also has weaknesses, which meant that recall values had to be "validated". In fact, empirically measured values were corrected by calibration. And weightings to correct empirically collected data are fundamentally different from the justified weighting of visibility factors, for example. Nevertheless, the model has become so widely accepted in Germany that it will probably soon be included in the Media Analysis (MA).
Recall values from surveys have proven to be precarious information in poster research internationally. This even applies to values that were collected specifically for poster research. And of course it applies all the more to values that were collected for a completely different research purpose and used in the specific study.
The Dutch Buitenreclame 2000 lies between the extremes - Postar and PWÖ - and contains elements of single point assessment and mobility analysis. It uses data from the official traffic counts of the Dutch spatial planning authority based on a sample of 120000 respondents per year. From these censuses, the start and end points of the journeys made are known in the Netherlands - but not the journey itself.
Since the census data is
As the "route choice behavior" of the population cannot be used directly for poster research, the market research institute Intomart developed a model. It is based on a sample of 7000 people from the market research institute. A complicated procedure is used to calculate routes for the people in this sample, and they are likely to choose the "easiest" route. Simpler: Probabilities for poster site contacts are calculated from the traffic flows of the official traffic counts. These routes are then transferred to a digital map.
The five Dutch poster companies still in existence at the time of the survey (today there are only four) entered their total of 21,000 billboards into this digital map. In this way, the probable routes taken by passers-by could be linked to the billboards actually present. As everyone who passes by a billboard does not automatically and necessarily come into contact with the posters on it, a number of features were also included in the model to evaluate individual sites, such as the distance from the street or the viewing angle. The Dutch model is therefore also based on a combination of single-point assessment and analysis of mobility behavior.
Are most Dutch posters invisible?
The range of an attack site is defined as "presence in the street". This - not very convincing - definition was already used in the first Summo-Buitenreclame study in 1990. Because this very broad definition means that every person who simply passes a poster site is included in the reach value, the definition was changed in the most recent study and visibility factors were taken into account. This was done through observation.
However, the Dutch visibility model proves to be a farce, even though the market researchers went to great lengths. In a country like the Netherlands, where everyone travels a lot by bike, monitoring the visibility of bumpers poses a particular problem. If someone is cycling a route, they cannot simultaneously make notes about the "zichtbaarheid van buitenreclame" without endangering traffic. So the routes were covered by tandem. The observer sat at the front and someone at the back diligently noted down what the rider at the front saw.
In order to determine the visibility of the individual poster sites, the field workers of the Intomart Institute were instructed to follow or drive along the paths known from the route selection model and search for poster sites. This is an extremely suggestive procedure that in no way corresponds to the natural passage past billboards. On the contrary.
People who normally walk or drive through the streets are not looking for advertising space. They have other things on their minds, and billboards are the least of them. But the astonishing thing was: although the field workers were explicitly required to look for billboards, they stated that they had not seen more than
32 percent of all posts could be seen. Are Holland's posters so cleverly hidden that they cannot be found even with a targeted search?
No, but many of them are used on both sides and are positioned at an angle of 90 degrees to the two streams of traffic on a street, so that in principle they can be seen from both sides. However, most pedestrians only ever use the side facing their own traffic flow.
The whole visibility model of the Dutch is therefore useless. However, the use of annual traffic count data for the production of digital maps is groundbreaking. However, in what other country in the world are there new traffic counts every year that can be used for the poster usage behavior of the entire population?
The Buitenreclame 2000 provides data on the evaluation of individual sites in reverse order, so to speak. Since we have all the information on the location, location and visibility characteristics of each individual location, we can use the regression analysis to calculate how and to what extent each individual factor contributes to the overall success of the locations - "could", it should be said. You could, if the Dutch visibility model were worth anything.
Memories of the
Eye contact with the poster
For a long time, it seemed as if Germany had found the philosopher's stone with poster media analysis (PMA). Today, however, skepticism prevails. The PMA is a single-source file for large billboards, city light posters (CLP), full columns and general sites, which also collects data on consumer habits and interests - in other words, a media analysis enriched with consumer data. It was commissioned by the Fachverband Aussenwerbung (FAW) in 1994 in order to provide media planning with personalized poster usage data and thus make the poster medium plannable. Today, the PMA is the most important planning tool for the strategic framework planning of posters in Germany. It is about to be included in the media analysis.
Methodologically, the PMA is based on the "poster query based on remembered paths" designed by mathematician Gunda Opfer in a personal interview with memory aids. In addition to information on consumer habits and interests in 40 product areas, a brief survey of television usage was also included, resulting in a multidimensional planning file that combines information on the performance of traditional poster advertising media with other target group characteristics.
The PMA asks about the memory of eye contact with certain places of attack on the basis of the outward and return journeys made as well as sections of these journeys. The question is based on the reason why the respondents were out of the house. The frequency of occasions, the outward and return journeys made and the means of transport used are used to gather initial information on mobility and the frequency of contact and to support the memory of certain sections of the journey. This is followed by a query of the advertising media remembered on the individual sections and the assignment to certain types of advertising media with the help of colored illustrations.
Performance values also apply
for partial occupancy
The PMA provides all performance values required for media planning for seven days and for all existing poster advertising media. These performance values can be extrapolated to the occupancy unit of a decade, i.e. an average of 10.5 days. As the number of poster sites seen by a person was included, the performance values can also be calculated for partial occupancy of an advertising medium type. The following performance values can be used in planning for full occupancy or partial occupancy:
? Widest circle of viewers (WSK): the total number of people who have seen a billboard at all.
? Reach (in percent and in millions): all persons in any population who have had at least one contact with an advertising medium of the respective type within the last decade.
? Opportunity to see (OTS): the average number of contacts a reached person has had with a touchpoint within the last decade.
? Gross Rating Points (GRP): the total number of contacts achieved as a percentage. GRPs are a planning value for advertising pressure and are calculated by multiplying reach (as a percentage) and OTS (average contacts).
? Total contacts in millions: the total number of contacts achieved with a billboard in absolute figures.
? Thousand contact price (CPM) in DM.
The additional survey of whether or not a poster contact took place at the respondent's place of residence allows a differentiation between contacts at the location and commuter contacts. All performance values can be calculated with the PC-DAP-Plakat planning program for all demographically and consumption-specifically definable target groups surveyed in the media analysis. Opfer sees the PMA as merely an "instrument for rough planning".
Even the PMA model cannot capture everything
The great enthusiasm of media planners has given way to an equally great and growing skepticism. One of the main objections is that the poster contacts reported in the MA are only suitable for intermedia comparisons to a limited extent. In poster advertising, the query of unsupported remembered eye contacts with certain poster sites corresponds to the identification of advertising media contact opportunities without the inclusion of an editorial component - the contact is therefore defined extremely harshly.
A validation study commissioned by the Outdoor Advertising Association in 1997 showed that the "poster survey based on remembered routes" does not record a large proportion of the frequency of passage or the actual eye contact with poster sites. This "underclaim", which is unavoidable due to the methodology used, also varies depending on the poster advertising medium. The forgetting rate of actually observed sites increases with the number of poster sites along the route as well as with the length of the described routes and the density of the poster sites.
The PMA therefore works with correctly recalled performance values that represent only 59 percent of the actual passage frequency and 78 percent of the actually noticed and known advertising points. The MA therefore shows contact values that do not do full justice to the actual advertising performance of the poster. And depending on the number and density of sites, poster types are sometimes more and sometimes less affected.
Consequence of the validation study: The unsupported remembered contacts reported in the PMA are subsequently "topped up" by the additional poster contacts that were also observed but forgotten. To this end, a calibration factor of 1.27 was derived for towns with a population of 100,000 or more in order to calculate the actual contact performance of the poster sites. On average, the PMA shows around 13 percent fewer poster contacts than actually took place. Gunda Opfer takes a relaxed view of this: The "hard" empirical values go "more in the direction of advertising media contact", the validated values "more in the direction of advertising media contact".
Black magic in the
Social research
You can also look at it this way: The measuring accuracy of the PMA is abysmal. There is no clearer way of saying with this wild calculation that the empirical contact values of the PMA are not much good. An additional 27 percent of the original value must be added to each individual survey value for places with a population of 100,000 or more. Then you get the right result.
However, this form of "calibration" is different from "weighting with visibility coefficients". With weighting, there are empirically verified findings about the visibility and its impairment of a location. The weighting therefore takes into account the actual reduced visibility of a location. PMA calibration, however, is the subsequent correction of a survey error. In other words, the survey method leads to indisputably and indisputably incorrect results. Therefore, the result is corrected. This is the transfer of black magic to empirical social research. It is an attempt to use unsuitable means to rescue a method that produces false results.
In home countries
Poster research modest
All models of poster research currently in use in Europe are either below the methodological level of these four models or use variations of them. Some of the methods that are below this level could be unhesitatingly dismissed as a laughing stock if they were not still of some use in the specific media scene of their country.
Following Postar, PMA, PWÖ and Summo Buitenreclame 2000, efforts are underway in Europe to promote poster research. In Scandinavia, JCDecaux and the More Group (Clear Channel) are developing a new approach that could quickly lead to uniform poster research across Europe. It seems to amount to an adaptation of the British Postar model.
This involves developing a basic module that is identical for all countries and is modified according to national circumstances. In Switzerland, the two poster companies APG and Plakanda/AWI have joined forces to find a new approach to research that is broadly in line with the European trend and will probably lead to an integrated model via job evaluation and mobility analysis.
It is strange that poster research is conducted at a modest level in the home countries of outdoor advertising of all places. In Switzerland at least, efforts are underway to replace the outdated A-value with a more contemporary approach.
Recent approaches to poster research
After the first part of the series (WW 44/00) on the basic problems of the outdoor advertising industry, the second part describes the advantages and disadvantages of more recent approaches, in particular the Austrian, German and Dutch research models.
The trend is towards technical measurementThe trend in the more modern methods of mobility analysis is clearly moving away from the "royal road" of traditional empirical social research - the survey - and towards observation through technical measurement. There are two main reasons for this, each of which sounds quite convincing. Firstly, observation by technical measurement is a method at the same level of accuracy as that practiced in audience research or, more recently, listener research.
The real problems arise beyond the measuring accuracy of the devices, but this has not affected acceptance so far. Secondly, there has been little experience - positive or negative - with technical measurement using methods such as the Geographical Positioning System (GPS) in the field of poster research. However, it has proven its worth in navigation. To date, the technology has only been used by the British Postar. So far, very little is known about the pitfalls of the system in media research. In the meantime, we can hope that it might work.
