Are GRPs Too Simple for Online?
Francesca Hills, Mindshare
Understanding GRPs GRPs have been used successfully for TV planning and measuring since the 50s and have had little adaptation, or application outside of broadcast since first implemented. The basis of a GRP, is a calculation of the estimated reach times the frequency. GRPs are used as a planning tool when purchasing TV activity and can give an indication of the weight of activity (thereby some form of measurement). However, GRPs are a currency which aid planners and are not a true reflection of reach. In addition, it helps to assess the value of buying activity, i.e. we look at actual and planned GRPs, to see what was achieved vs. what was planned. As the world has become more digitalised, the concept of creating GRPs for digital measurement has been discussed to aid direct comparison across different media platforms and provide a means of accountable delivery of an advertisement.
Methodology Based on a simple methodology, GRP calculation is meant to serve as an indicator of a target’s potential exposure to a message (where 1 GRP = 1% of the target Universe). In TV: Assume that the Universe in this case is 42 million adults 15-64. A TV spot achieves 25 GRPs. That represents 25% of 42million, which equals 10,500,000 exposures (also known as impressions or impacts). This common form of measurement can then be applied to online. Applied to Online: A banner on a website may achieve 10,000,000 Impressions, i.e. individual servings of the ad. We can reverse the calculation above to get this expressed as GRPs. (just change data below so it shows 000s in the right places)
The Complexity of Online Measuring the effectiveness of online media can be considerably more complex due to the nature of how consumers interact and the design of creative asset (e.g. time spent, banner hot spots etc.). Many online metrics are based on actual consumer interaction, not just exposure.
In addition, online is very different from TV in that it can be planned to be capped once it has reached an agreed audience or a consumer has seen the advert a certain number of times. To achieve a unique reach of 1 million, a planner could buy 2 million impressions and frequency cap at two or buy 3 million impressions at a frequency cap of three. Therefore, if planners have the ability to control online activity so specifically, GRPs would give some insight in the value of buys, but little in the way of understanding planned vs. achieved performance.
Various Approaches: Dynamic Logic Dynamic logic offers a unique approach to post campaign analysis, by having not created a firm and defined methodology. Instead, Dynamic logic offer creating bespoke methodologies for each client depending on the questions they want to answer.
Using post campaign reach and frequency data along with the campaign spend they can create a large variety of charts and graph to indicate how effective each media channel is to the campaign.
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