Commercial Audience Market Research

This chapter reports on the business relevance of media and market research. At the same time, it is intended to provide academic researchers with information about the data collected, which can be used for scientific purposes. Media, apart from diversification businesses (cf. chapter “Wider, Deeper, More Oblique: Diversification of Media Company” in this volume), operate in two markets: the market of users and the market of advertisers. For the latter, reliable data on the audience are important, because they form the basis for media planning and thus for decisions on which advertising media advertisers spend their money on. It is common for advertising marketers to have to prove their performance to their principals. Since there is a principal-agent conflict (Did the agency really invest the client’s advertising money correctly?), a comprehensible and jointly initiated collection of this data by all market partners is necessary. This is guaranteed by Joint Industry Committees (JICs). Media research is a highly differentiated form of social and market research and works with high methodological standards. Media studies are of primary importance here, as they provide comparable reach and structural data for advertising media for the respective media types, which are accepted as currency in the advertising market. In addition, there are market media studies (which survey not only media usage but also consumer behavior and psychographic target group characteristics) and advertising statistics for circulation and advertising expenditure. The media and market media studies use special and genre-appropriate methods which are decided on in the JICs. These data are used for media planning and for setting advertising prices. In addition, they are used for other purposes, e.g., for marketing and sales measures in the user market. In order to convince advertisers, media marketers also use a variety of other studies. For example, studies on advertising impact are becoming increasingly important due to digitization and the greater availability of digital data. Modern statistical analysis methods (modeling) and automated processes (predictive analytics) are thus also taking over functions of established media research focused on reach and structures. In addition to advertising marketers and JICs, advertising and media agencies are also conducting audience and advertising effectiveness research in order to provide added value for their clients, the advertisers. New digital forms of communication and the dynamic changes in the media business mean that the classic methods of media research are being supplemented by other techniques and data providers, which affects the influence of the research institutions organized by JICs. On the other hand, they are currently the best guarantee of transparency and reliability to resolve the principal-agent conflict. The dynamics of the media market, which continues to digitize and differentiate, will lead to further adjustments in media research methods in the medium term, and major upheavals cannot be ruled out in the long term.