‘Intelligent' magazines to measure readership

US-- Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) is to test a system using ‘intelligent' magazines to measure readership with tiny electronic tags attached to the pages.

The system, which MRI has been testing in-house for more than a year, uses radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on selected magazine pages. These are monitored by a chip in the magazine's sleeve which records when the magazine, or particular pages within it, are opened and closed. The chips – worth $20 each – can be reused for other magazines once the data has been retrieved.

The trial, set to take place in early 2008, aims to determine whether the system can reliably measure the total time spent with the magazine, the number of reading occasions, and exposure to individual pages. The firm said that in tests, the system picked up magazine openings and closings with 95% accuracy, but was less accurate for individual pages.

MRI hopes the information could enhance its Survey of the American Consumer, which currently provides magazine readership data based on in-home interviews.

The firm is conducting the test with Waiting Room Subscription Services, which provides magazines for public places, and is also seeking backing from publishers. The test will initially involve a few New York locations with around 20 magazines each, and may be followed by a larger scale test later in the year.

Jay Mattlin, MRI's senior VP of new ventures, told Research: “Magazines and to some extent newspapers are feeling some heat from other media that are being measured electronically. It may be that they're losing out on a slice of the advertising pie because they're being measured in a lo-tech fashion. So we're trying to see if there's a way to get some information about consumption of this medium in an electronic way.”

Measuring a non-electronic medium electronically is not easy, but MRI believes that in the digital age, there is demand from publishers struggling to maintain market share, and advertisers for whom consumption data on print media can seem old-fashioned.

Mattlin said early tests were encouraging, but added: “It's going to take a while before we have a firm grip on the full potential of RFID with regards to magazine audience measurement.”

Author: Robert Bain

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Tests planned for hi-tech magazine tracking