Shakeup looms for Internet Research

14/June/2001

Such a contract would probably be awarded via competitive tender, as already happens in the UK and many other countries with contracts for television audience measurement.

The aim would be to establish a statistical "common currency" for dealings between media-owners and advertisers. Confidence in Internet advertising has been undermined by discrepancies in the information currently available from rival research agencies, including Nielsen NetRatings, Jupiter MMXI and Net Value.

JICNET was unveiled at a seminar in London this month on "Accountability in New Media", jointly organised by the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers).

The new body is the brainchild of two well-known media research consultants, Roger Holland and Bob Hulks. Holland is the former Head of Marketing of the Newspaper Society, and Hulks is the former Chief Executive of BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board).

Together with Lynne Robinson, Research Director of the IPA, and Bob Wootton, ISBA's Director of Media and Advertising Affairs, they constitute the board of JICNET, which has been set up as a limited company.

To be effective it needs the support of advertisers, ad agencies, Internet service providers and website publishers. To judge by the cordial reception given to the presentation by Holland and Hulks to the 60-odd participants in the IPA/ISBA seminar, it is likely to get it.

Surprisingly Holland and Hulks reported that their proposals had met with an encouraging response even from the research companies that might be thought to feel threatened by them. This may have been because, as one of the companies admitted, none of them is at present making a profit.

What precisely are the proposals? First is to get JICNET properly organised. This is expected to take till the end of September, and Holland and Hulks expect that funding will come principally from publishers.

The next step will be to work out a satisfactory specification for the desired service. As Holland and Hulks pointed out, existing services were set up without clients being consulted about panel sizes or types of data needed.

Ultimately the plan is to get a single industry survey going, comparable with BARB or the National Readership Survey.

Left unanswered by Holland and Hulks was the question of whether this survey would be a co-operative venture by the existing research agency rivals or whether JICNET would invite agencies to tender and then award a contract to one or two of them.

All British precedents suggest that, assuming JICNET gets off the ground, it will go for the competitive tender option.

The prospective JICNET contract will, of course, apply only to the UK. However, given the international nature of the Net and of Net research, the UK decision is likely to have a considerable impact on the global positions of the companies involved.

Also likely is that other countries may be inspired to copy the UK's example and award collective contracts of their own. This will make for some interesting confrontations.

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