The Secret of Media Diaries

I attended the Media Research Group conference in November last year and was interested to see some of the detail behind the methodology used by GfK and Ofcom for their Digital Day research. Like many of us researchers have used countless times, a media diary was deemed the most appropriate and accurate way of collecting vast amounts of behavioural data from respondents. 

I first started using diary methodologies back in 2001 when I started running the Fishbowl projects for Freeserve, later Wanadoo. We quantified how much time was spent consuming media in a typical week and were able to prove the growing impact of the internet. We used a paper diary in those days so that the research couldn't easily be discredited by having an online biased methodology. 

I used a different approach more recently when running the IAB's Mobile and the Media Day research. Rather than giving respondents a huge grid to add to at various points in the day, we sent them a well-routed survey at 6 points in the day which they could complete online. Surprisingly we had an unusually high drop out rate, despite all respondents being opted in online panellists who were well incentivised.

Would this have happened if they had been sent a grid based media diary? One that they could mindlessly tick if they forgot to complete a day's worth of data? My hypothesis is that because we pushed the survey to them and asked specific questions, it was very difficult to complete passively. Respondents were forced to think about each question whether they wanted to or not. So it’s possible that our methodology weeded out the poor quality responses.

The IPA's Touchpoints study uses PDAs to serve a flow of questions appropriate to the routing, which like my media diary will force respondents to think about their responses. A reassuring methodology for collecting such a vast amount of data, if my theory is correct.

There's more than one way to keep a diary and respondents will always want the easier option. But the ability to use routed diaries online, on mobile or on PDAs offer an opportunity to ensure data quality when collecting high volumes of data from respondents.




For more information:


IAB's Mobile & the Media Day
http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/advertisersneedtothinkmobilefirst020211.mxs

Touchpoints
http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/TouchPoints-Site-Home 

Ofcom's Digital Day
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/digital-day/