The search for credible research

By Louai Al Asfahani, Managing Partner, Paragon

We in the advertising industry have more than our share of problems, but they are not without solutions.

During an industry event not so long ago in Dubai a guest speaker, Antoine Chouairi, confirmed suspicions about the accuracy of GCC research industry.

In sharing his own media research data with the audience and comparing it to data sold by media monitoring gurus Parc and Ipsos-Stat it came as no surprise that none of the figures tallied.

But what did surprise was that finally someone had broken the code of silence and publicly spoken about a subject most industry professionals consider taboo.

The good news is that as a step towards improving media monitoring research, he not only highlighted an industry problem but also put his money where his mouth is and offered to partly fund independent media research.

The bad news is that to date the status-quo still exists.

Even though some skeptics may have doubts about Chouairi's personal motives in critiquing the research industry, no one can deny that we will all benefit from higher levels of professionalism, accuracy and transparency. After all, 'a man's decisions are only as accurate as his information'.

Media research is constantly used by agencies, clients and media independents alike for planning purposes. Budgets are allocated and major decisions are impacted and supported by such data - which is not free of charge. Not having accurate data only leads to a situation where the blind lead the blind.

To further highlight the magnitude of the problem pointed out by Mr. Antoine I have taken the liberty to share with you recent cases from the Kuwait media scene to exemplify his point; please read through and draw your own conclusions.

Kuwait: troubled times

The answer to a seemingly simple question such as 'who is Kuwait's top ranking English daily newspaper?' has proven to be quite vexing (in a market that has only three English papers).

One of the two leading research companies ranked Kuwait Times as top, while the other said it was Arab Times. But in reality which is it? Another simple question - 'who is Kuwait's top ranking Arabic daily newspaper?' - again failed to provide a simple answer.

Both Al Watan and Al Rai were ranked as top by the different research companies. Once again we are left to wonder.

The plot thickens as agencies and media independents were invited to a gala event hosted by the 'top ranking' Arabic daily, in which AC Nelson shared its media research results that backed up the Arabic daily's claim to fame.

What resulted was the media scene became cluttered by both rivals' claims of leadership. Let's face it; being number one has its merits from a financial point of view - it attracts bigger advertising budgets - and from an ego point of view, as it endorses bragging rights. But from a joint industry professionals point of view, it is simply a case of NOT getting what we paid for - the facts.

Progress Monitoring

If we can somehow justify discrepancies in qualitative research results, how can we justify the huge differences in terms of quantitative research results for a straight forward task, such as media monitoring.

The media rate cards are the same, the monitoring method is the same; the media vehicles monitored are also the same. Why then the huge discrepancies in the results? To add insult to injury it sometimes takes 15 days into the month to receive the data for the elapsed month - could we have some service please.