RFID Used To Test Passive Measurement Of Magazine Readership In Public Places

Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) is collaborating with DJG Marketing and Waiting Room Subscription Services (WRSS) to test radio frequency identification (RFID) technology as a means of measuring magazine readership in public waiting rooms.

The joint test with WRSS follows more than a year of in-house testing by MRI of RFID technology, which uses microchips, antennae and radio waves to identify people or objects. MRI's objectives in the collaboration are to determine whether the company's RFID-driven Passive Print Monitoring System can reliably measure--in a waiting room setting--the total time spent with a specific magazine issue, the number of individual reading occasions and, potentially, reader exposure to individual magazine pages.

These types of information are seen as potential enhancements to the magazine audience estimates drawn from MRI's Survey of the American Consumer, which is based on in-home interviews.

"The testing we did in-house from September of 2006 through August of 2007 suggests the power of RFID technology can be harnessed to provide passive measures of magazine pick-ups and time spent reading in public places," said Jay Mattlin, Senior Vice President of New Ventures at MRI. "At this stage, we need to test our Passive Print Monitoring System in a non-laboratory setting to determine how well it holds up in this important reading environment."

DJG Marketing will help to facilitate the public-place testing via its Waiting Room Subscription Services unit (WRSS), the publishing industry's leading provider of magazines to public place venues. DJG Marketing, a media and marketing advisory and outsourcing group serving the media industry, will seek publisher support for the testing.

"Public place distribution is an important source of targeted readership generation for magazines and provides a defined competitive environment for sampling multiple titles," according to Marc Passarelli, President, WRSS and COO, DJG Marketing. "As publishers and advertisers look to metrics that will expand their understanding of the readership experience, this test will be instrumental in providing detailed information on public place reading and in further development of the technology being used."

For MRI's internal tests, the company created an "intelligent" magazine prototype--containing the Passive Print Measuring System--that keeps track of reader activity with designated pages. Essentially, an RFID tag attached to the magazine sends a signal to a tag reader each time the test subjects turn to one of the designated magazine pages. The system records the times of the openings and closings of designated pages, as well as the opening/closings of the magazine itself. Mattlin reported at a recent international conference of print researchers that the system correctly identified magazine openings and closings an average of 95% of the time in these internal tests. The Passive Print Measuring System will now be placed in a set of magazines and tested in real-world waiting rooms with WRSS, using their proprietary database of waiting room locations.

"There are myriad of factors that affect how RFID technology would work in different settings," said Mattlin. "We've learned a lot so far in our controlled environment, but considering the complexity of trying to measure a non-electronic medium, like magazines, with electronic signals, it's going to take a while before we have a firm grip on the full potential of RFID with regard to magazine audience measurement. On the positive side, these early internal tests were very encouraging and we hope to deepen our practical knowledge via this public place testing."

About MRI…
Founded in 1979, MRI interviews approximately 26,000 U.S. adults in their homes each year, asking about their use of media, their consumption of products and their lifestyles and attitudes.

MRI is the country's leading provider of magazine audience and multimedia research data via its Survey of the American Consumer and other studies. The company's in-home interviews each year represent the biggest survey of its kind.

MRI is part of GfK Group AG, Nuremberg, Germany. For more information, please visit www.mediamark.com

About DJG…
DJG Marketing LLC provides outsourced media and marketing services. Their three main business practices include: Consumer Marketing, Ad Sales Marketing Services and Digital Media Marketing. Founded in 1993, DJG offers senior level executives who can assist media companies, industry suppliers and agencies with Big Ideas and business development plans without costly additions to overhead. DJG owns Waiting Room Subscription Services (WRSS) www.wrss.com, the leading provider of Public Place copy programs for circulation and audience management, and ProCirc, www.procirc.com. a complete circulation management outsource service. For more information on DJG Marketing, please visit www.djgmarketing.com.

About WRSS…
WRSS (Waiting Room Subscription Services, LLC.), founded in 1987, was the pioneer of subscription sales to public place locations--like doctor's offices, beauty salons, or barbershops--where the high volume of people traffic produces multiple pick-ups and readings of the magazines sent there. WRSS has pioneered many of the advancements in public place distribution in use today. WRSS remains the acknowledged leader in the field and offers over 1,450,000 venues in up to 175 different location types that attract a wide variety of demographic audiences. WRSS is a division of DJG Marketing, LLC. For more information, please visit our website – www.wrss.com.

SOURCE: Mediamark Research & Intelligence