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 Understanding Newspaper Audiences
Warc Best Practice
December 2011
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Understanding Newspaper Audiences
Warc Best Practice
December 2011
Understanding Newspaper Audiences
Andrew Green
Ipsos MediaCT
Go to: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Go to: ESSENTIALS
Go to: WHERE TO START?
Go to: WHAT'S NEXT?
Go to: CONCLUSION & CHECKLIST
Go to: REFERENCES & FURTHER READING
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Measurement and understanding of newspaper audiences are struggling to keep up with changing consumer habits.
A small – but fast-growing – number of newspaper readers, for instance, now get their news from newer digital platforms. In
the UK, the National Readership Survey (Q1, 2011) found 3.8m adults (8% of the population) were viewing publisher content
via tablets, e-readers or apps1.
Like most 'old' media, news publishers are having to re-invent themselves as 'branded content carriers,' by making news,
articles, photographs and other content accessible via multiple platforms, each displaying the brand's recognisable tone of
voice and values. However, arguably, the main challenges to newspapers are economic more than editorial, especially in
mature markets.
In 2011, the US Newspaper Association of America (NAA) reported the seventeenth successive quarterly year-on-year decline
in newspaper advertising expenditure and the lowest dollar spending figure since the first quarter of 19832. Paid circulation is
26% down on its 1990 peak. In the UK national newspaper circulations have fallen by more than a third since 2003.
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ZenithOptimedia estimated that total global spending on newspaper advertising will hit around $93 billion in 20113, $10 billion
less than the number recorded in 2000. By 2013, according to the same source, the internet will overtake newspapers to
become the world's second largest medium. Television, radio and Out of Home media are expected to maintain their shares
while the internet gradually erodes the advertising shares of newspapers and magazines.
So does this all spell doom for newspapers? Not necessarily.
Newspapers have changed greatly in recent decades. In the printed product, colour is commonplace, supplements and
sections have sprouted and total pagination has greatly expanded.
World Press Trends reported that global printed newspaper circulation (including free titles) in 2009 was 7.7% higher than it
had been five years earlier. Declines in mature markets are being more than made up for by growth in African and Asian
markets – notably India4 – and the organisation also pointed out that around 37% of the world's adult population read a
newspaper on a regular basis.
But it is just a question of when, not if, technology-driven change comes to these emerging markets too. So "Did you see the
Tsunami report in your branded content carrier this morning?" might not have the same ring as "Did you read the newspaper
today?", but the expression reflects a growing reality for newspaper publishers that may one day describe the mainstream
audience's dominant experience. This trend should also provide fertile ground for developing new measurement and
understanding of news audiences for many years to come.
ESSENTIALS: The Power of Out of Home Advertising
Over the years, newspaper marketing organisations like the UK's Newspaper Marketing Association (NMA)5, Australia's The
Newspaper Works6 and the American NAA have showcased the strengths of newspapers to advertisers. These include:
l
High coverage (either locally , regionally or nationally, depending on the country)
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Targetability – e.g. reaching specific localities or groups of people such as commuters
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Immediacy and short campaign lead times
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High engagement (reading is an inherently engaging activity)
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Flexibility of sizes and formats
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Space to communicate detailed messages
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The ability to produce tear-off ads/coupons
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Space to feature telephone numbers and website addresses, enabling rapid response
The NMA also identified six strategic roles newspaper advertising can perform for readers
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Offer a call to action and prompt decision-making
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Provide depth of information
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Communicate/enhance brand values
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Encourage audiences to reappraise brands
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Create a forward-looking public agenda
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Remind viewers of a current campaign
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WHERE TO START? Measuring newspaper audiences
As one of the world's oldest advertising media, newspapers (like magazines) have seen limited advances in the ways
readership is measured. Today, advertisers are used to getting far more granular audience information for their television,
internet and even outdoor campaigns, so this conservatism is perceived as a weakness.
The two main methods by which advertisers can assess the value of newspapers to their campaigns are to look at how many
copies are sold and how many are read. Neither of these measures is as straightforward as they may seem at first glance.
An audited (i.e. independently verified) circulation figure purportedly details how many copies of a newspaper are sold. Some
copies are sold on the newsstand or via household subscription. But others might be sold in bulk to offices, airlines and
libraries or given away on promotion. Each distribution method has a potentially different value to advertisers because it has a
different probability of being read. Identifying, isolating and measuring the different kinds of circulation is a challenge and is
done with varying degrees of success in different countries.
Readership measurement seeks to establish how many and what kinds of people have been exposed to a given title and, by
implication, to the advertising carried within it. The standard approach is to ask a representative sample of the population
about their reading of the main newspapers available to them.
In almost all cases, surveys specify that respondents should only indicate reading of printed editions of a newspaper, as it is
believed to be much more difficult to remember visits to particular websites. In addition, the advertising carried on a newspaper
website may not be the same as that carried in the printed edition.
As reading increasingly takes place online or via mobile devices, this approach will provide a less and less complete picture of
reading habits. There are also other perceived weaknesses of old style readership surveys.
First, most of the 90 or so readership surveys around the world only publish readership data averaged over 6 or 12 month
periods. This means that the variations in reading levels occurring day by day and even month by month are not captured.
Another limitation is that surveys can only cover the largest publications. Most ask about the 200-300 highest circulating
newspaper and magazine titles. Even using sophisticating 'screening' methods which allow respondents to focus in on the 1015 titles they are most likely ever to read, it is almost impossible to start with a list containing many more than this. Yet in some
countries several thousand magazines and newspapers are present and hungry for advertisers' money.
A third drawback endemic to the measurement of newspaper readership is the absence of any gauge of advertising exposure.
Some newspapers consist of several individual sections with upwards of 100 pages of content. The likelihood that a reader
will see an advertisement on page 3 or page 93 is going to vary. In the vast majority of cases, readership surveys offer one
overall readership number for an entire newspaper and do not attempt to dig any deeper.
Television and internet audience measurement, again, can capture detailed audience data for every advertisement, wherever
it is placed. For marketers looking to build econometric models that help them measure the returns on their advertising
investments, detailed audience information on their campaigns is crucial. The lack of granularity in newspaper audience
measurement often means that advertising in the medium is not measured or not measured correctly. It is therefore likely to
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lose funds to other media when budgets are allocated.
Beyond the raw numbers, it is believed that the very act of reading a newspaper implies a certain level of engagement with the
content which is not necessarily present for television or radio advertising.
Measurement of engagement exists to varying degrees on some surveys, but it is often less than helpful in guiding media
planners due to vague questions about time spent reading or 'proportion read' which, in isolation, do not offer much direction
or differentiation between titles.
WHAT'S NEXT?: Towards the Perfect Readership Survey
There have been many attempts over the years to bridge the gaps between the 'average issue readership' numbers provided
by the surveys and the advertising impact sought by marketers.
In the United States, for example, MRI's 'Admeasure' service launched in June 2009 integrated the country's main readership
survey with a separate on-line panel. This panel generates estimates of issue by issue readership of magazines (but could
equally be used for newspapers). A third sample is used to collect what are called 'reading & noting' scores, a measure of
advertising impact.
By integrating these three separate databases, users of the Admeasure service can make estimates of the number of people
seeing specific advertisements in specific publication issues.
A mathematical solution was also offered to the challenge of integrating audiences to the printed and on-line editions of
individual publications in Hungary in 20077. Here, respondents from the country's main readership survey, the NMA, were
'fused' with panellists from the on-line audience measurement service run by Gemius.
Users could then look at the combined readership of both on-line and printed titles. The technique has been examined in
several countries since then. But this research will need to go beyond simple counting. People undoubtedly navigate their
newspapers differently on-line and within mobile applications than they do the printed version. The way they see advertising –
perhaps even what they see – will also differ.
Publication of daily readership figures tends to be more of a political than a research consideration. Ideally, a readership
survey will already be interviewing roughly the same number of people every day to allow them to gain a balanced picture of
reading habits on different days of the week.
As a result, it is already possible for them to generate readership estimates for each daily edition of a newspaper. At present,
though, publishers in few countries are keen to allow this.
Section readership is another area of debate. From an advertiser point of view, it is obviously useful to have a more accurate
picture of who reads which part of a newspaper. From a publisher point of view, having one readership estimate to cover
reading of any part of a title is going to offer the highest possible number – reading of any individual part of the newspaper is
bound to be lower than reading of the title as a whole.
Researchers also need to grapple with the problem of interview length and the accuracy of peoples' recall.
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CONCLUSION & CHECKLIST
Newspapers are still a mass medium read by millions of people. They offer an environment where advertisers can reach
people in an attentive frame of mind and where they can tell them more than in a television or radio commercial.
Readership measurement needs to move with the times, just as the medium has. Audience surveys need to:
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Capture all reading, whether it be of the printed product, the on-line or the mobile edition;
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Pinpoint any differences in the content people access on the various distribution platforms;
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Offer better granularity than they have to date: reading of individual daily editions, with some insight into the various
sections making up a newspaper;
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Link to other measures which highlight the ability of newspapers to offer an attentive and engaged audience to the
advertising within them.
FURTHER READING
ARTICLES
(For a full list of newspaper related articles, browse the newspapers section of our subject index)
Checking the Pulse of Print Media: Fifty Years of Newspaper and Magazine Advertising Research
Gergely Nyilasy, Karen Whitehill King and Leonard N. Reid; Insights from Scott C. McDonald, Journal of Advertising
Research, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2011, 50th Anniversary Supplement, pp. 167-181
The March to Reliable Metrics: A Half-Century of Coming Closer to the Truth
Edith G. Smit and Peter C. Neijens, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2011, 50th Anniversary Supplement, pp.
124-135
Warc Briefing: Newspapers
Warc Exclusive, November 2010
New York Times Metered Model
Norm Johnston, Mindshare, March 2011
How people use tablets and the issue of specific issues: Insights from the 2011 Print and Digital Research Forum
Manfred Mareck, Warc Exclusive, October 2011
Media measurement: Press for change
Danny Kay, Admap, November 2010, pp. 42-43
NEWSPAPER CASES ON WARC
(For a full list of our latest cases featuring newspaper media, use the Media Channels filter on our Case Finder feature)
MINI Cooper: MINI vs Porsche Challenge
Effie Worldwide, Gold, North America Effies 2011
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Scrumpy Jack: Scrumpyshire
Integrated Marketing Communications Council Europe, Bronze, IMC European Awards 2011
Arrow: Presidents Collection
Kishan Kumar Shyamalan, Sanchayeeta Verma and Deepa Totad, Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, Entrant, 2011
Post Office: The Great Currency Deal
Direct Marketing Association – UK, Silver, 2011
California Travel and Tourism Commission: Californication of the UK
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Entrant, IPA Effectiveness Awards 2011
BOOKS
Green, Andrew (2009). From Primetime to My Time: Audience Measurement in the Digital Age (Warc)
Brown, Michael (1999). Effective Print Media Measurement (Ipsos-RSL Limited)
WEBSITES
http://www.printanddigitalresearchforum.com/
http://www.naa.org/
http://www.nmauk.co.uk/
http://www.thenewspaperworks.com.au/
REFERENCES
1. The nation’s app-etite for new ways of reading
2. Advertising Expenditures
3. Underlying ad recovery continues despite shocks in Japan and the Middle East
4. World Press Trends: Advertising Revenues To Increase, Circulation Relatively Stable
5. NMA
6. The Newspaper Works
7. Ford, Jim and Perjés, Tamás (2009). Facing the Challenge – Measuring the Combined Audience of Multi-Platform
Titles. Proceedings of the Worldwide Readership Symposium, 2009.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Green is Chief Marketing Officer at Ipsos MediaCT and the author of the book, From Prime to My Time: Audience
Measurement in the Digital Age. He has held senior research positions at Zenith Optimedia, Billetts, OMD, Nielsen and Carat.
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