IMRB launches WAM: What is it?

When topics discussed are about the Internet, I always seem to have a lot of questions and being regarded as a person with a lot of questions by the panelists at IMRB’s launch of WAM in India at ‘Internet Works!’ I proved my point of being the confused man :-)

I completely agree to the perspectives of the panelist

• Thomas Puliyel, president, IMRB International - for showcasing the need of the B2B Consumer.
• R Gowthaman, leader, South Asia, Mindshare when he said Digital is a marketing medium rather than an advertising medium
• Nitin Mathur, director, marketing, Yahoo! India - Investment and Collaboration is required to make this work
• Sam Balsara, chairperson, Madison World - to which figures do I believe? Credibility is important

Sam Balsara said - "Any data from a media owner is completely meaningless. I always urge media owners not to waste time on arriving at estimates. Third party data is much more meaningful."

This reminded me of a campaign I monitored on the clients behalf on the number of entry points to the particular website via our campaign just to see the effectiveness. The hits were about 2000 rather than the claimed 6000 by the media publishing firm! (Of course, I did put up a tracking code secretly to collect intelligence reports via analytics)

Here's my key take away points of the new product. (Note : I have not used it first hand)

WAM – Internet Audience Measurement

Pros

• Ideal to measure audience via Age
• Gender
• Profile
• SEC A, B C/D/E

Cons

• Only for India, Source is a panel of 5000 users
• Currently monitors 800 websites
• Based on software installed in machines
• Based on logic of usage pattern of users, loses out on Mobile Internet usage which is 23%

Being able to read the product description before the actual product launch was actually a disadvantage as it left the audience a little confused. However, here, I would like to exploit all my views in detail.

But before that, a couple of things I noted about this new toy for media boys/girls:

One can filter audience using the internet by:

• Age Categories 15 – 24 yrs, 25+
• Gender
• SEC A, SEC B and SEC C/D/E
• Top 8 metros usage and Rest of India Usage categories
• Across group pages category analysis
• Reach
• Page Views
• (W)eb (R)ating (P)oints
• Monitors data from cybercafés, homes excludes mobile access
• You can analyze trends by Date, Number of Days, By Weeks and By months
• You can do media planning by Reach, Page views, by impressions and frequency
• You can profile audience by finding users who views the site and profiling of those people viewing the site.

******

The Knowledge I had before hand:

• I read the product details from the brochures initially kept on tables, before the launch (they were later taken away just to be given back during the launch)
• A free tool called Google Ad Planner that can help you build a media plan for the internet and is based directly on people searches
• Services very similar to Google Analytics which need to be incorporated on site to collect massive data. Google Analytics has a 86% precision when compared to some paid software with 90% precision.

Google Ad Planner features (FREE)

Pros

• Find basic information of a particular website used in India and Global
• Find target website and audiences by filter through vast categories and target India state-wise
• Data Source: Google Search Query

Cons:

• Data not available for Google.com or any of its subsidiaries
• This data is not available for India – Demography is not available, Economic Classes, Gender and trend view over the days

Having said this, I still find that Internet is a still a complex medium to monitor.

The product launch did remind of my swimming days where I witnessed the opening of the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK). This swimming pool was built by the top engineers who had closed minds. They avoided looking at the world and spent crores to build this epic. They built a pool that was dug deep into the ground like the traditional ones forgetting that they could save much more expenses by building an elevated pool with a modernized feel.

I find the same approach been taken for WAM. I felt the fundamental approach was out of sync with the internet’s complex nature of being accessible from various devices and networks. Thus it ended up having a panel of users to be lab rats for source. This concept was very much followed by IMRB’s other product which are commendable. But when it comes to monitoring the INTERNET, I feel its a different ball game and that IMRB needes a collaborative approach while monitoring data on the internet.

How would I use WAM?

Firstly, if I were to buy it, I would create a fusion between the WAM & Google Ad Planner and then create a media plan.

I certainly do not intend to say that this new product is all wrong and media plans cannot be created based on it because I am very happy that IMRB has taken an initiative to venture into the online monitoring space. It obviously needs tweaking considering its still in its nascent stages at a base of 5000 users and counting.

Bridging the Gap: My Suggestions to the WAM Team:
Along with your current approach create an alternate approach which is world standard by:

1. Offering a tracking code for free - similar to that of Google Analytics code but with further break ups so that the owner can monitor his website Analytics thus believe his site than media owners
2. WAM’s Main Software needs to be a fusion of the current approach and the data collected by these tracking codes
3. Have a real good look at Google ad planner, it helps internet media planners to target a class of people based on interests and industry. As media planners, we will require such categorization.
4. Have a sales team in place to not only sell your monitoring product but to promote the tracking code to be put up on websites for free
5. Your competition is global when it comes to tracking India Online as it simply cannot be based on a panel of 0.0074% users of the Internet population in India which does not include the Mobile Users at 23% of the Internet Population. This alternate approach along with your current will help you track almost everything