Fusion is no longer the vision in research, but rather the preferred solution. The first fused media and brand data will be available to the media industry as soon as August this year comprising of the PRC’s PAM S and Nielsen’s Consumer Panel. The PRC plans to fuse Narratiive’s (formerly Effective Measure) online data to PAMS to produce an integrated data set of print title and site brand consumption.

"Single source is dead!" says Peter Langschmidt, consultant to the PRC (Publisher Research Council). “As the world becomes more complex, markets are fragmenting and inevitably this single source data no longer does the trick like it used to.”

It’s easy to see how this archaic type of survey no longer offers a viable solution. The questionnaires are extremely long as more questions are required to understand the complexity of modern lifestyles. Consumers are acutely aware of their time constraints in this “connected metropolitan” world and so there are inevitably fewer respondents prepared to answer long interviews and fewer responses per question. This all leads to poorer quality of response which in turn delivers mediocre data.

“Fused data is the internationally accepted method of research, and this was the solution recommended to SAARF in the detailed future proofing study conducted way back in 2014,” confirms Langschmidt. This preferred method brings previously separate media assets together for the most granular view of consumers while at the same time providing cross platform behaviour.

The PRC and Nielsen will, within the next few months, be fusing their two respective data sets PAMS (Publisher Audience Measurement Survey) and CPS (Consumer Panel), and later this year, Narratiive’s online data. This will bring vital consumption data to manufacturers, media agencies and publishers at a fraction of the cost of that of proposed new media surveys planned for next year.

In addition to multi-study fusion being the global best practice and most cost-effective methodology, it makes no sense to build new panels from scratch at great expense to marketers when Nielsen have been running a consumer purchase panel of 4000 households that has been accepted and used by manufacturers for over 20 years. The CPS has actual bar-coded and audited purchase and consumption data of 5000 brands by retailer by purchase cycle.

This strongly raises the question - why must brands be compelled to pay millions of Rands and wait until the end of next year to establish a panel that performs the same function as an existing panel that is already subscribed to by manufacturers The PRC already provides Retail, Automotive, Mobile and banking branded data in PAMS and this CPS diary fusion will add another 5000 FMCG brands and be freely available to the marketplace in August this year.

PAMS documentation and all Media Software bureaus where the fused data will be available can be found on the PRC website at http://www.prc.za.com/pams/.