Digital measures what people ‘do’ not ‘why’

In response to Derek Jones‘ ‘Will video kill the reach and frequency stars?’ article, Vic Davies, course leader and senior lecturer at Bucks New University, says it will be dangerous if the digital behavioural concept gets used as a trading currency…

“Offline media research measures ‘opportunity’, not actual exposure. This worked as a surrogate model of measuring communications back in the 1950s when the JICs were born, because the gap between opportunity and communication was much narrower, because of all sorts of social and economic factors, that impacted on media and the consumers relationship with it.

As we now know that relationship has evolved and measuring just potential opportunity is not the absolute that it was then.

Digital measures behaviour, what people ‘do’. What it does not do is measure ‘why’. This is examined in a piece on the Long Tail that Sue Elms of Millward Brown wrote some time ago, and is also explored in a lot of Thinkbox’s research work with IAB.

What is missing is a means by which ‘why’ can measured in such a fashion that it can then be incorporated in the currency exchange model.

What will be dangerous will be if the digital behavioural concept gets used as a trading currency, and
becomes a poor substitute for examining why someone engages with media.

And oh, if you are thinking of saying this is ‘too difficult to do’, then think of the alternative, and think of the implications for agencies and media owners if analytics rule everything you do.”