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At a presentation to mark the launch of the Kantar RapidMeter in Sri Lanka, held recently at The Kingsbury, Colombo, and attended by a packed audience of business leaders and senior managers from advertisers, TV stations and advertising agencies, LMRB CEO Himalee Madurasinghe said, “We are delighted to announce the successful setting-up of the RapidMeter project, a world class TV audience measurement system that not only provides efficiency in media spends but also valuable insights on how to optimise these spends depending on the audience that is important to the client.”
According to feedback from users, the GPRS based downloading system has already proven its worth.
“Our obvious choice for moving into the next generation of TV audience measurement was to partner with Kantar Media, the global leader in TV audience measurement. However the investment and the resources we have dedicated for this project is staggering,” stated Himalee.
In a series of testimonials screened at the event;
Unilever Home & Personal Care Director Ramani Samarasundara, commenting on the importance of a reliable method to measure the efficiency of media spends stated, “Today, traditional media is still a very big part of Spends in Sri Lanka and therefore with such a wide reach, it is increasingly important for us as marketers to really understand how effectively we are reaching our target audiences. Having the right communication and product is really not enough to win in the market. You really need to be able to monitor, measure and take corrective action to effectively communicate to the right audience. So therefore, in that context as a marketer I feel it is very important that we have a reliable and accurate way of monitoring the reach and the frequency and the way in which we reach the audiences.”
GSK Consumer Healthcare Marketing Director Ravi De Coonghe said, “We are one of the largest media consumers in SL and for us it is very important to ensure our money is invested effectively, to deliver our communication objectives. I personally believe that it is a must for Sri Lanka to have a proper scientific media monitoring to validate the information which will help our decision making.
“I believe that Sri Lanka is one of the fortunate countries in Asia with LMRB becoming the first to introduce Kantar RapidMeters. So it is important that we continue this investment and the monitoring on Kantar RapidMeters to make our decisions much more robust and help our brands to grow from strength to strength.”
Similar sentiments were shared by Industry leaders Starcom CEO Michael Holsinger, Phoenix O&M MD Lalith Sumanasiri, Media Factory Jt. MD Prashanth Subramaniam and Grants Director Peter Solomon, who unanimously agreed that the current monitoring mechanism is already helping them to make sharper decisions on the media investments. They pointed out that the faster access to information, as well as the ability to track, the modern digital technology were huge benefits that are adding value.
Keld Nielsen, Global Commercial Director of Kantar Media Audiences speaking on behalf of Kantar Global on the emerging trends spoke of Kantar’s leadership in TV audience measurement systems worldwide. He commended LMRB for efficiently implementing the RapidMeter system in Sri Lanka.
The RapidMeter, a new development by Kantar, had previously been deployed by Google in the UK. LMRB became the first country in this region to successfully test and launch the system. LMRB now plays a consultative role in South Asia, sharing its knowledge and experience with other countries in the region, who are planning to implement a similar system.
Senior Consultant, Nihal de Silva explained how, due to the high cost, most peoplemeter panels worldwide were being run at sizes adequate for mass audiences on large channels. He described how an Establishment Survey over twenty times the expected panel size was conducted by LMRB among those aged 4 years & above. Next the resultant data had been subjected to advanced statistical analysis in order to determine the factors having a significant effect on TV viewership. Continuing his detailed explanation, Nihal made it clear to the audience the meticulous scientific process that was followed to ensure the integrity of the measurement.
He also stressed that the Industry should move away from the hitherto common practice of merely using the ratings to determine station rankings, to focusing on the valuable lessons that could be learnt from the millions of numbers organised by demographic groups, TV channels, TV programs and time periods that the ratings reports provide.
Interesting findings
LMRB RapidMeter Project Senior Project Director Head Dharshana Perera then exposed the audience to a host of interesting findings that had emerged from an analysis of the RapidMeter data.
It was found that during the last three months, on average an individual had spent 100 minutes per day watching TV. This translated to a staggering 850 million hours of watching TV by Sri Lankan viewers in the month of May.
Across the 13 terrestrial stations monitored by LMRB, a viewer is offered over 400 hours of TV content for a day. However, the average viewer who watches just 4 channels a day is exposed to about 72 commercials.
Interestingly, while children between the ages of 4 to 15 years make-up 20% of the 4+ year universe, only 4% of the telecast time is devoted to kids programs. This means that kids are pre-dominantly spending time watching programs developed for adult viewing.
Cable & Satellite homes have heavier viewers compared to those in homes with only a terrestrial connection. Over 50% of the viewership of those in C&S homes are on non-terrestrial channels, making the task of reaching out to them very challenging due to the much wider choice of channels.
IMRB International Senior Vice President Hemant Mehta touched on the unlimited possibilities of fusing RapidMeter data with the existing tools such as the recently launched Target Group Index (TGI – a single source database that is rich in terms of demographic, psychographic, product consumption, media & lifestyle data) as well as the LMRB Household Panel (which tracks monthly household purchases of FMCGs) and the wealth of insights that can be generated for marketers to make sharper and accurate decisions in a more cost effective manner.
Concluding the Kantar-LMRB joint presentation, LMRB invited all stakeholders to give their fullest co-operation to make this important new venture a success.
