An eye on the media

Throughout 2010, Kantar Media carried out a ‘state of the nation’ audit of the alcohol debate in UK media, analysing over 10,000 pieces of coverage from print, television, radio and online sources. Kantar’s executive summaries answered specific questions from Diageo about opportunities, risks and key trends within the debate, including “What do advocates and detractors talk about?” and “How has the position of the drinks industry changed since 2009?”.

A useful compass

Philip Lynch, media evaluation director at Kantar Media, argues that, rather than keep this vital work in-house, it makes financial sense to engage outside help: the kind of constructive recommendations – not to mention the credibility – that can only be offered by an autonomous agent makes the whole process more efficient and saves the client money in the long term. “We also offer that most precious commodity, time,” he adds. “We focus on research so our clients can focus on communication. I once heard a quote from a global business leader that ‘we have more money than we have time’. That has stayed with me.” Rebecca Perry, senior corporate relations manager at Diageo also supports the outsourcing of this important task: “The Kantar Media research highlights the key trends in the debate, which allows us to focus on the important issues”, she says. “It means we save time and resources by not chasing every last thing that is being written about us”.

Although a fractured media landscape might seem to make it more difficult for organisations to get a concrete picture of where they stand in relation to the media, there is positive potential there, too: Lynch believes that “the potential for accurate measurement is improving as a result on new media. Digital media creates footprints we can track with a high level of accuracy, and we do not need to make assumptions about the audience – we can see them and understand their viewpoint.” Understanding what is and isn’t relevant to the business acts as a compass to navigate this bewildering landscape: as Perry says, “the key for Diageo is to have a clear sense of our direction and objectives, so we can focus on the areas with most impact for our business.”

An important part of the ongoing project is Diageo’s need to check for any discrepancies between the drink  industry’s communications and the media’s agenda. One of the major issues is the volume of media coverage achieved by health lobbyists: as Lynch puts it, “health groups have a two-to-one volume advantage over drinks companies in the UK media.” Lynch sees Kantar’s role as keeping their client abreast of the changes that have occurred in the media debate with each year of their analysis. Over the past four years, he identifies these changes as moving from the health impact of alcohol and calls for control on advertising and distribution to – in the past 18 months – the issue of minimum pricing. Ultimately, Kantar’s work also helps Diageo position themselves as leaders in their field in terms of understanding the public debate on alcohol and society. It convened an industry round-table to review the report findings, which was attended by prominent drinks companies and industry bodies: “When we started the analysis project in 2007”, says Perry, “we quickly realised that the data would have implications for the wider industry. In each successive report we have expanded the focus of the analysis to be more industry led, with less emphasis on individual companies and brands.”

A close relationship?

By sharing the report findings in this way, Kantar argues that the industry’s appreciation of communications measurement was increased. “Diageo’s decision to share findings with other companies and organisations was a very enlightened move which has helped establish a more consistent voice for the industry”, says Lynch. He describes Kantar’s role as providing an encompassing context for the individual industry players: “When we sit down with the round-table partners, I know everyone knows what their own boat looks like, but they don’t know the ocean. Which is where we come in.” A powerful position, but how closely does it bring agencies like Kantar to the decision-making process of their client companies? Lynch believes that their working relationship “gets us close, because we know our results are being used to decide future communication strategies rather than being treated as a simple audit of past achievement.” Parry emphasises the value of a thorough foundation in the decision-making process. “Any decision we take when dealing with social issues involves a large number of stakeholders”, she says, “and the Kantar research helps us to understand the wider media implications before we act. The data helps us to plan our media strategy and to refine our tactics once a campaign is underway.”

In June last year, Diageo was able to act on information compiled by Kantar’s long-term analysis programme and announced a new funding agreement with the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) to train 10,000 midwives in supporting families affected by the syndrome. The involvement of industry players with independent charities and foundations always generates controversy, so Kantar was able to offer Diageo a map of the media sources most likely to criticise its involvement in neo-natal care. Within 48 hours of the launch, fierce criticism from the health lobby caused concern within Diageo, but briefing from Kantar empowered the company’s communications team and the board was satisfied that this opposition was manageable.

Expert Opinions

"Measuring communication and its impact is becoming more crucial by the day, with ever-more modes of communication making effective message delivery a challenge. Effective outreach is what separates the companies who have consumers at the core and build activities around them, from others who care less. For Diageo it matters how the consumer thinks and behaves, so much so that it becomes a part of objectives and motivates further courses of action; which is what this campaign is all about. What it has achieved is phenomenal in terms of keeping people on their side and mixing diplomatic tactics with insight. Thanks to Kantar’s prompt and effective media measurement, Diageo’s social responsibility credibility is one notch up. Together, Diageo and Kantar have done a commendable job in creating a media strategy niche, which has actually worked as an antidote for containing a viral infection. More path-breaking action can follow if they can experiment, keeping the dialogue alive and the stakeholders engaged, lest drudgery strikes! For Diageo, its SmartBrand system, accompanied with such media monitoring activities, is surely creating more success for an already successful brand while strengthening its core. Effective media measurement thus helps gain relevant insight into where the compass for further action points and whether market profitability is being ascertained."

Shikha Singh, Silverspoon Enterprises

Shikha Singh is a marketing and communication consultant. She began her career as a sales executive for Volvo before managing public relations at the Italian Embassy in New Delhi. She now advises companies looking to expand into Asia on research-based market entry strategies.

"In the highly charged debate over alcohol in the UK, media monitoring has supported Diageo by helping it to understand how the alcohol industry was positioned in the media debate, which channels to use and what issues resonated with the health lobby. This allowed Diageo to sharpen its media strategy and to a certain extent predict the reaction of their adversaries. Some stark truths also emerged for the alcohol industry.  The health lobby has a two to one volume advantage over drinks companies, and in the whole coverage has not been in their favour.  A conclusion could be made that a media campaign is perhaps not the most appropriate tactic and other approaches need to be considered. Like all media monitoring, the limits of examining only media coverage can be seen: it doesn’t indicate the level of influence of coverage on public opinions and policy decisions. Increasingly, companies need to go further and assess this through methodologies such as contribution analysis and process tracing. The UK faces one of the worst problems globally in underage drinking. Drinks companies promote responsible drinking but at the same time want to limit government regulations and must sell more in order to reach sales targets. Media monitoring has helped them achieve these aims. Has the opposing side in the debate also benefited from media analysis and insights? We can only hope so."

Glenn O’Neil, International University, Geneva

Glenn O’Neil teaches research and communications at the International University in Geneva. He leads evaluation projects for international organisations, NGOs and companies. Previously, he managed communications field programmes for the International Red Cross in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.