Evaluating the best use of your advertising dollars just got a whole lot more complicated. Marketers, and more specifically advertising planners and buyers, are expected to be able to demonstrate to our clients that their advertising will reach their audience. Recently, a red flag has been raised sky high, striking fear into any media planner asked to evaluate advertising campaigns. This is especially true for those of us who wish to compare to same-period campaigns in prior years. Effective October 1st, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) board has announced changes to the way circulation is reported by media such as newspapers or magazines that may publish in both print and multiple electronic formats.

Newspapers and magazines will now be able to count an individual multiple times in their reported circulation number if that person subscribes to the service in both print and electronic form. Print, online, e-readers, and phone apps will soon all be considered independent content sources. However, there is a newspaper-thin caveat that a person can only be counted multiple times if the user has to register to use the additional service or if the service requires a fee of 5% or more of the cost of the print edition. Regardless, we’re likely to see an influx of online news or content providers requiring registration or small fees in hopes of boosting their reported circulation to advertisers.

The ABC audit reports for newspapers will have both paid and verified, non-paid circulation categories. Each format that the newspaper comes in will have a separate reports on circulation. However, the front page of the audit will include a summary of “total circulation.” Total circulation is the number that allows the same person to be counted multiple times if they use paid and verified, non-paid versions that they purchase or subscribe to. This could be unsettling, especially when used in combination with the ABC Reader Profile report.

The current audit system allows us to quickly judge the value of a newspaper by multiplying the reported percentages of a client’s target audience by the total circulation. Example below.

Example:

Circulation: 800,000

Gender
Male: 60%
Female: 40%

Age:
Under 18: 10%
18-35: 20%
35-55: 35%
55+: 35%

Household Income
Under $20,000: 10%
$20,000 – $60,000: 25%
$60,000 – $100,000: 45%
$100,000+: 20%

In this example, if we were only interested in males over 55 with over $100,000 household income we’d simply multiply our circulation by the respective percentages (800,000 x .6 x .35 x .2 = 33,600), in which case we’d be interested in roughly 33,600 of their circulation. However, with the new ABC guidelines, this publication with its multiple online formats with registration required can report 1,600,000 circulation, because the average subscriber uses two formats. Simple enough if the segment subscribers we are interested in also average two formats. However, perhaps the 55+ males only use a single format whereas the 18 – 35 year-olds average 3 formats. Suddenly we need more data to make an informed conclusion. How many of these people are counted multiple times? A reported 1,600,000 circulation of one newspaper could be 800,000 unique people where as 1,000,000 reported circulation of another paper could be 1,000,000 unique users. Without reconciliation between the Reader Profile report and the new circulation standards, the readership data will be inherently skewed. As a marketer, I’m not opposed to the reporting of information changing with the times, but we will still need access to additional data to inform our decisions. I’m keeping an eye out for the first sample reports using the new circulation numbers. Stay tuned for more information.

Reference:

Audit Bureau of Circulations

ABC Board Announces Changes (PR Newswire, with link to prototype of new report)