Less than half of Australia’s major media agencies subscribe after one year of EMMA
New readership survey Enhanced Media Metrics Australia has not been taken up by the majority of Australia’s major media agencies, research by Mumbrella suggests.
A poll by Mumbrella has suggested that just seven of the 20 major agencies in Australia are paying to subscribe to the metric, with Starcom and Match Media the only two to confirm their subscriptions.
Both News Corp’s agency UM and Fairfax’s agency Carat declined to talk about the metric, which is now one year old. However, Mumbrella understands holding groups IPG Mediabrands, which houses UM and Initiative, and Dentsu Aegis, which own Carat, Mitchell & Partners and Vizeum, are utilising the data.
Launched last August, the major publishers have spent millions of dollars to develop EMMA hoping it would usurp incumbent Roy Morgan Research as the readership currency in Australia. On Monday a Mumbrella analysis showed the data was claiming growing readerships for several metro print publications despite double-digit declines in circulation.
I find it very interesting that when contact by Ipsos recently to undertake a survey on behalf of The Readership Works they still wanted me to participate – even after I mentioned that I work in the media industry and my biased opinion may be used for evil….. Seems legit?
This is becoming a bit of a witchhunt from Mumbrella. It takes a long time to build up a subscriber database and Emma provides diversity to an often introverted media landscape. Teething issues like we’ve seen are bound to happen, not sure why you’re banging this drum so hard.
Hi Michael,
There’s absolutely no witchhunt here. This is an important issue in the industry and we’re simply reflecting what the media buyers are saying.
We went to lengths to try and get Readership Works/IPSOS’s perspective included in the story but currently they are largely refusing to do interviews or even answer questions.
Cheers
Nic – Mumbrella
I also was approached to take the survey and was told it didn’t matter I was in media. I didn’t proceed though.
What media buyers say is driven by one thing only. Reducing cost of their media and research investments. Hardly an unbiased position.
Great article Nic and well done for speaking out on a topic that a lot of people don’t have the guts to talk about. The emma data is flawed and is only designed to benefit the people (publishers) paying for it. When will they ever learn that media people are not stupid and can see straight through their antics.
The data as a currency would only harm the clients of the agencies that were using it.
Agencies don’t mind paying for data as long as its credible.
Michael, the reason why it’s hard for you to build a customer base is because you are trying to sell a lemon.
Buyers will use it when it strengthens, not weakens, their negotiating position with publishers. data that claims readership growth is of no use to them.
The story here is that News wanted to muddy the waters. They conned Hywood into joining. Now they have muddied the waters.
Why? Because the Morgan data showed up the fact that huge numbers of copies were going to “bulk” or at least to people who did not choose to buy product.
Fairfax stupidly failed to understand that its strength was the demographic reach rather than mass.
Agencies were never going to pay and even those that have will not be paying much.
End result: News bought some time and Fairfax gave up.
“It is difficult not to be sceptical in the extreme. I think this scepticism is unfortunately validated and reinforced by the blatant factual distortions emanating from News Corp editorially” – this says it all. The Tele’s warped trumpeting of the EMMA stats shows just how pumped up the system is. It all becomes harder to believe. The only part of the numbers I’d trust is the significant lead the SMH has on total cross-platform readership compared to the Oz and the Tele – but of course both those News rags conveniently fail to mention that.
You can’t have your cake and eat it
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You can’t have your cake and eat it (too) is a popular English idiomatic proverb or figure of speech.[1] Many people misunderstand the meanings of “have” and “eat” as used here but still understand the proverb in its entirety and intent and use it in this form. Some people feel this form of the proverb is incorrect and illogical and instead prefer “you can’t eat your cake and have it (too)”, which is in fact closer to the original form of the proverb[2] (see further explanations below) but very rare today. Other rare variants use “keep” instead of “have”.[3]
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” is about consumption. Once eaten, the cake is gone. This analogy is often used to describe heavy spenders. Once the money has been spent, there may be nothing left to show for it.
The proverb literally means “you cannot both possess your cake and eat it”, once it has been eaten, you no longer have it “you cannot eat the cake and keep it” or “you can’t eat the cake and have it still”. It can be used to say that one cannot or should not have or want more than one deserves or can handle, or that one cannot or should not try to have two incompatible things. The proverb’s meaning is similar to the phrases “you can’t have it both ways” and “you can’t have the best of both worlds.” Conversely, in the positive sense, it refers to “having it both ways” or “having the best of both worlds.”
Who would subscribe after that last batch of readership figures?
While the ad industry often treats their audience like mugs, I’m sure it contains some very clever cookies with finely tuned bullshit detectors.
Besides so many fundamental flaws driving its very existence, it is awful to use. Horrible.