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its diary system
Cash incentives work to boost response rates
By Kevin Downey
The mere mention of the paper diary system used by Nielsen to measure local television audiences is enough to incite riotous outcries from media planners and buyers.
The diary method of keeping track of TV viewing has long been considered outdated and ineffective.
But shivers aside, it will remain the primary means to measure local TV audiences for the foreseeable future.
And because of that, Nielsen has undertaken a major effort to get more people to fill out its diaries.
"We know that there are other ways to accurately measure television that may even be better," says Karen Kratz, director of communications at Nielsen Media Research.
"But metering technology is not going to be feasible for every single market. The diary, although it has some shortfalls, is a very reasonably priced form of television measurement.
"It will be around for a very long time, especially for the smaller markets that may not have enough advertising dollars to make it worthwhile to invest in meters."
With that in mind, Nielsen has found what seems to be a fairly logical way of boosting participation in its surveys.
It comes down to giving people more money and making them feel a bit more special.
This past May, Nielsen put a $5 bill into most of its survey forms. That was an increase from the $1 incentive that the TV ratings company had previously used when enrolling new respondents.
It worked. The response rate jumped to better than 32 percent from just over 29 percent a year earlier.
In July, Nielsen began mailing most of its surveys to respondents in Priority Mail envelopes.
A little feeling of specialness apparently overtook some survey recipients. In year-to-year comparisons, Nielsen’s response rate again jumped from about 29 percent to nearly 33 percent.
Like virtually every other research company that tries to keep tabs on which media types people are using, Nielsen has had trouble for the past several years getting people to participate in its survey.
There are a number of reasons for the steep drops in response rates. They essentially boil down to people having less time to fill out surveys. And with more women joining the workforce, the primary pool of respondents for most surveys has been pretty much wiped out.
The response rate for Nielsen’s local survey dipped as low as 26 percent two years ago.
"That definitely affects the accuracy level of the ratings," Kratz says. "This is something that, the more accurate the sample is, the better it will reflect whatever you’re trying to measure."
Nielsen’s response rate has been inching back upwards, and the company hopes to increase it to 36 percent.
Although that’s an improvement, it’s a modest goal, and it masks another significant problem. Nielsen, like most research companies, has been having an especially tough time recruiting minorities to participate in its surveys.
"We’ve been testing a lot of initiatives to get those segments of the population into our sample more than they have been in the past," says Kratz.
"With the African-American and Hispanic homes, we found that a monetary incentive definitely helps. We’ll be testing $8 and $10. If we discover that this helps, we hope to implement it sometime in the near future."
While Nielsen goes about improving its paper diary system, a few ventures are going to bring better technology to local TV--and other media--measurement.
Nielsen has been testing the Peoplemeter system it uses to generate national TV ratings in the Boston market. The first set of demographic ratings from that test is due to be released this month.
And Arbitron, the primary source for radio ratings, has been testing a Portable People Meter in the Philadelphia area. The PPM is a passive system worn by respondents that is designed to measure exposure to all broadcast media.
September 4, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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