On May 23, our cover story sought to find out how the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) has fared in one year of its existence. Now, leading marketers assess a year of ratings from BARC, and decode its pros and cons
BY SIMRAN SABHERWAL
(With inputs from Neeta Nair and Samarpita Banerjee)
How easily have advertisers adapted to the industry’s brand new television audience measurement system, the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India or BARC, which officially released its first set of data on April 29, 2015? BARC’s mandate was to address the issues people had against the earlier system of television audience measurement, TAM, with regard to sample size, data inaccuracy and data integrity, and provide much more robust, transparent data. A year down the line, do advertisers think these issues have been addressed?
In the advertising industry, television ratings are extremely crucial as they not only help broadcasters decide on content, but also set the base for ad rates. Advertisers, on the other hand, decide their media spends on the basis of the same ratings. So, are advertisers happy with BARC?
‘DATA INSTABILITY CONTINUES’
Advertisers say that the data generated by BARC has still not stabilized completely and lacks consistency. According to Niladri Datta, Head, Corporate Marketing, LG India, “While BARC technology is more robust than TAM, the performance still lacks consistency and will take time to stabilize. The new system still throws up some errors which are more pronounced than the TAM system. With BARC being the only currency available, we look forward to the new system stabilizing fast and providing more meaningful inputs to advertisers.” This statement is corroborated by Sunil Kataria, Business Head (India and SAARC) – Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL), who says, “BARC has not exactly delivered as per expectations. While we were prepared for a datadark period and to face the brunt of a new currency, we ended up having virtually an entire year without ratings. The period April-September 2015 was media dark because of changing bases. Subsequently, fluctuations in pre-post evaluations continue to cause uncertainty in evaluating our campaigns’ delivery.” Kataria adds that he sees the uncertainty continuing. “Now, as things are just about settling, we again face the uncertainty of an impending new TV baseline that may render all existing benchmarks unusable. The expectation from BARC in terms of change management as well as handling issue-specific resolution was much higher from our side,”adds Kataria.
While BARC has clarified that the issue is not data volatility as alleged but data ‘fidelity’, and that people would take some time to adjust to the new system, marketers still struggle to understand the data. Says Rajiv Dubey, Head – Media, Dabur India, “We were given to understand by BARC that the data which you are looking at right now is the way the data is. Probably, the data one was given earlier was not really stable data. However, I don’t know whether one can live with so much of instability. That’s my challenge. Right now, one is not able to make any sense out of unstable data.” A couple of advertisers also mentioned that the stakeholders of BARC (the IBF, ISA and AAAI) should have ideally waited for another eight to nine months until the data stabilized before asking their members to discontinue subscription to TAM. Another issue that emerged was that complaint resolution, specifically, has been weak but marketers says things are improving and the complaint redressal time has come down.
Sharper segmentation was another demand and an advertiser unwilling to be named pointed out that improper slicing of data and insufficient sample size generated data that was not readable at all. To address such concerns, BARC has launched a monthly communique, Alpha Club, to provide sharper consumer insights, particularly for niche channels. Commenting on this initiative, Rajat Mehta, Senior President & Country Head, Brand & Retail Marketing, Yes Bank says, “The Alpha Club reports that BARC sends to all its subscribers is a good example of how it is disseminating information to advertisers for whom NCCS A is significant.” Marketers also say that while the data being dynamic and real-time captures a better and real picture, a larger sample size will give advertisers more confidence to rely on the data. And, this is still some way down the line. Jnaneswar Sen, Senior, VP, Honda Cars India Ltd says, “TAM had challenges on sample size, distribution and overall coverage of the TV viewing universe. While BARC has resolved a lot of these challenges, to stay ahead, it needs to continuously expand and enhance coverage to capture the diversity of India.”
NCCS: A THUMBS UP
A significant change in BARC has been the change from the old Socio-economic Classification (SEC) system used in TAM, which profiled viewers on the basis of education and occupation of the Chief Wage Earner (CWE), to the New Consumer Classification System (NCCS), which profiles viewers on the basis of education of the CWE and ownership of consumer durables and access to services they have, allowing marketers to zero in on consumers who can spend. Says Gunjan Soni, Chief Marketing Officer and Head, International Brands Business, Myntra, “The transition from SEC to NCCS is good from the point of view of allowing advertisers to sharpen their targeting of the right audience. The choice of discriminating durables included to determine purchasing power are good indicators of disposable income and in turn helps us determine who could be the right buyers for the product category in question.”
The low sample sizes in the SEC system meant higher instances of statistical data issues, making NCCS based on product ownership more robust. Marketers can visualize consumer behaviour better while developing marketing strategy and execution parameters. According to Gaurav Suri, Head Marketing , UTI Asset Management Company Limited, “It has taken some time for advertisers to correlate their earlier brand TG with the new one or in some cases completely redefining the TG. It has stabilized now and many advertisers have come up with actual identification of their revised or new TG with the use of NCCS.” On a similar note, Gaurav Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer, OLX India says, “The shift has not been a simple one. It is not easy to migrate the entire media planning and buying process from one system of measurement to another. We had to not only re-align our media but also our research and consumer understanding as per the NCCS.”
RURAL: POTENTIAL GAME-CHANGER
The other big game-changer, advertisers feel, could be rural audience measurement by BARC. With rural data, advertisers can now measure effectiveness of TV as a medium for rural India, thereby moving from gut-based/static data planning to real time measurement. According to Kedar Teny, Director – arketing & Digital, McDonald’s India (West & South), “Rural data at this scale has never been available to dvertisers. Rural markets have shown strong preferences to FTA channels and advertisers have been alerted to these as game-changers in those markets.”
How can BARC be more valuable to advertisers?
Across the board, advertisers’ expectation from BARC is stability of data and they look forward to BARC data stabilizing fast and providing more meaningful inputs. Advertisers are also betting big on ultiplatform measurement which will be a big value add and enable them to measure the reach of a programme across platforms and quantify integrated planning from one data source. Another demand is more qualitative data, “BARC can provide more qualitative inputs, i.e., considering the target segment of the advertisers, they can suggest the high impact options,” says Rajesh Patwardhan, Chief Marketing Officer, LIC Mutual Fund. Training is another area BARC should look at. Neelima Burra, CMO, Cargill oods India says, “BARC can be more valuable by ensuring correct usage of data by constantly upgrading the skills of media agency and marketing professionals. This requires a combination of statistical, analytical and hands-on software training. Inherent in any measurement data will be statistical errors and it is important that end users are made aware of this. This requires an on-going engagement including mentoring and handholding sessions to media planning and marketing organizations.”
