SAARF and Partners Plan New Audience Currency

South African organisations including research body SAARF plan to introduce a new audience currency to replace the discontinued AMPS measure, and will consult with interested parties at a meeting in Johannesburg on 2nd March.

The project is a collaboration between the Marketing Association of South Africa MA(SA), the Advertising Media Forum (AMF), and the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA). In an exclusive interview on web site www.themediaonline.co.za , SAARF Chairman Virginia Hollis and Greg Garden, CEO of (MA(SA)) told Michael Bratt the move comes in response to 'growing concerns from marketers and their agencies about the brand, product and intermedia usage research void that has occurred arising from the withdrawal from SAARF of the media owner associations, and the resulting lack of funding for such research'.

Hollis says the project is looking to establish 'new and improved independent and media neutral ongoing consumer focused research, which could be available to all marketers on an affordable basis'. Media owners have created their own Establishment Survey (ES), but Garden says this cannot replace AMPS as its objectives are based on media owner requirements and do not measure 'products, brands and category data'.

The country's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) resigned from the SAARF Board in 2015 after a dispute between the two organisations and decided to conduct its own radio research, for which TNS was subsequently awarded a five-year contract.

Hollis is urging all interested parties to attend the consultative event, which is on 2nd March at 15:00 for 15:30 until 17:00, at The Country Club Johannesburg. Register via email to saarf@saarf.co.za .