Proof that Audience Data is Essential for Effective Media Evaluation

There is growing recognition among media evaluation industry experts that it is essential to include audience data if the true impact of media coverage on consumers is to be communicated to the C-suite. In this article, Metricomm compares results derived from traditional volume metrics with those obtained using our audience data. This proves definitively that volume data is unreliable. Using audience data, on the other hand, allows the real impact of news coverage on consumers to be confidently quantified.

To obtain the proof, we determined daily audience data over the past five years from online (earned) media coverage for 174 brands across nine sectors in the UK.  We then analysed this with YouGov’s daily BrandIndex data for the same brands across the same time period, to understand the relationship between news coverage and consumer reaction.  Such a comprehensive impact assessment has not been possible previously.

YouGov BrandIndex is a daily brand tracking platform that measures consumer perception of brands across a variety of metrics, such as ‘buzz’, awareness, reputation, consideration and purchase intent. It provides daily, real-time data and over 15 years of historical data to help businesses and marketers monitor their brand’s performance, benchmark against competitors, and make data-driven decisions to optimise brand growth.

Metricomm found from its analysis of 174 brands over five years that there is a strong relationship between news audience data from online (earned) media coverage and YouGov consumer buzz.  The example below uses Aldi UK data for illustration:

To February 2024, 82% of net buzz for Aldi was influenced by the audience reading online media coverage.

The chart shows the size of audience generated by online (earned) media coverage for Aldi compared with BrandIndex net buzz for the brand (net buzz is positive minus negative buzz). As the media audience goes up and down, so does the buzz. Between October 2020 and February 2024, 82% of Aldi’s net buzz was influenced by the audience generated by earned (online) media coverage, at a significance level of 99.99999%.  Typically, the larger the size of audience for news coverage, the greater the impact on BrandIndex key metrics through the sales funnel, including ad awareness, word of mouth and purchase intent.

We repeated the analysis using volume of online (earned) articles about Aldi compared with BrandIndex net buzz for the brand (net buzz is positive minus negative buzz).  It is clear from the chart below -and validated by the statistical analysis – that there is no relationship between volume of coverage and consumer reaction.

To test the relationship between audience data and BrandIndex metrics further, we looked at the relationship between:

1. Audience data from online media coverage and BrandIndex consumer attention (volatility)
2. Volume of coverage and BrandIndex consumer attention

The graph below confirms that the relationship between audience data from online (earned) media coverage and consumer attention (volatility) is much stronger than for volume of coverage and consumer attention.

Through the Funnel

Based on the data we gathered from 174 UK brands across nine sectors, we can quantify a strong relationship between the audience generated by online (earned) media coverage along the entire path to purchase. The graph below illustrates the average contribution of online news coverage across all these brands to the stages of consumer reaction measured by YouGov:

• between the media audience and positive buzz and positive reputation at the top of the funnel
• between the media audience positive consideration through the funnel; and
• between the media audience and purchase intent at the bottom of the funnel.

Such a comprehensive impact assessment has not been possible previously. It is the combination of daily online media audience data and daily YouGov BrandIndex data which makes it possible to measure the role played by media coverage in the marketing mix. Of course, the extent of the impact will vary by sector and individual brand.

It is the combination of daily online media audience data and daily YouGov BrandIndex data which makes it possible to measure the role played by media coverage in the marketing mix. Analysis showed similarly strong relationships between the size of audience for online news coverage and BrandIndex word of mouth and purchase intent, again across 174 brands. Of course, the extent of the impact will vary by sector and individual brand.

Time to Move Beyond Volume-based Metrics

The continued reliance on volume metrics, counting the number of articles that cover a brand, produces extremely unreliable ‘insights.  This was fine 30 years ago, with just printed publications and no internet, when all brands really needed to understand was how they were being portrayed in the media.  Despite the advent of artificial intelligence, fancy dashboards and real-time insights, volume metrics continue to form the foundation of measurement for the media evaluation and PR industries.  However, they bear little, if any resemblance to what happens in the real world.  At best they still provide some insights into how a brand is being portrayed in the media but reveal nothing helpful about how this impacts consumers.

When audience data is properly and reliably used for media evaluation, the impact on consumers becomes very apparent.  Indeed, the results reveal that media coverage – and more specifically online media coverage – has a muchgreater impact on consumers than has ever previously been recognised or understood.  The implications of this are significant.  Far from being the “poor relation”, which is how many marketing and advertising people still see the industry, PR really must be taken far more seriously as a key part of the marketing mix.

These findings provide the hard evidence needed to open the door for PR to senior marketing and C-suite executives, including CEOs, CMOs and CFOs.