Claims that data sets being used by the Publisher Research Council, the IABSA and Nielsen are the same as what’s being done by the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa’s product and brand survey attached to the Establishment Survey are factually incorrect.
CEO of the BRC, Clare O’Neil, said the PRC uses the Nielsen Homescan data-set, known as the Consumer Panel Services (CPS), which only measures fast moving consumer goods. Nielsen have run this research for the past 20 years and the majority of the FMCG marketers subscribe to this data (and have done for 20 years).
“The BRC are doing a products and brand (P&B) module (which is being piggy-backed off the Establishment Survey). This module went into field with the ES Jan – June 2018 wave and will be released to the industry (with the ES Jan – June 2018) dataset at end September (with industry presentations at beginning of October 2018),” said O’Neil. The P&B module is not limited to FMCG and covers financial / motor vehicle and other categories as well.
“As you know, the BRC funds 68% of the ES, with the PRC funding 32%. The entire industry acknowledges that a Products & Brands module is required with the rest of the ES dataset (which also includes the new segmentation module of the SEM’s),” said O’Neil. Which is why the BRC was able to provide some funding to the P&B module.
Before embarking on the project in August/September 2017, she went to visit Peter Langschmidt at the PRC to ask if the PRC would like to participate in the P&B module (being the 32% funder of the ES). “The response from the PRC was no, they did not have funds for such,” O’Neil said.
The BRC went ahead with its module, funding it on its own, with a sample size of 3 000, which will be weighted up to the 12 500 sample of the Jan – June 2018 wave. “The BRC reached out to ALL the major media agencies and got a team of media agency professionals to work with the BRC on this project (i.e. compiling of the questionnaire),” she explained.
O’Neil said the BRC was in “very productive discussions with Greg Garden in order to find collaborative opportunities (between the BRC and MRF) regarding the products & brands module. We are still in discussion, so I cannot comment on any outcomes as yet.”
Check out the questionnaire here: BRC Products & Brands[1]
