Will you miss me when I’m gone?

Ahead of the MRG International Conference in Berlin this week, Route‘s MD, James Whitmore, asks whether it’s time for the JICs to change.

Heading to the MRG conference in Berlin, I think it is safe to say that the JICs are not in the best possible place. We seem to have forgotten why they are here and why they are important. Perhaps the whole thing needs a shake up. Change and renewal, although expensive, may be what is required.

At first glance, the purpose of the JICs is not terribly exciting. The data they produce – audience figures for each medium – are the platform for other stuff. They represent the level playing field on which more is to be built. I have yet to see an estate agent extol the virtues of the foundations of a property. At the same time, I have yet to see a property that can stand without foundations.

In addition, JICs bring to bear two priceless attributes – trust and impartiality. It is hard to conceive of another way to achieve this.

Advertising has always been about shiny new things. The rapid advance of the internet, particularly its mobile dimension; the explosion of data sources; the increasing difficulties and costs of traditional research methods; the economic pressure of the last five years and countless other opportunities large and small; all contribute to a sense that a better party may be happening elsewhere.

Often running a JIC puts one in the position of spurned lover, chasing the Child Support Agency for money whilst the ex cavorts in the sun with the latest pliant and pneumatic beau. It’s tempting to say that the new relationship will never last – but of course, sometimes it does.

JICs are a product of their times – the NRS dates from the 1950s. People gathered together to achieve things that could not be accomplished alone – mutual societies, the Common Market, the United Nations, trades unions, Christmas clubs, medical research and so on. You name it, until the mid 1980s, we got together to do it.

Investment in media industry research meant clubbing together to find things out, to set a bar and provide a context, to put in place checks and balances for the medium. The data underpinned trading and were the engine of revenue growth. The figures were a source of innovation and pride.

We live in a more individualistic world. What is in it for my company? What is in it for me? “What is in it?” is a trade-off between costs (“can I use the money better myself?”) and benefits (“do I get more out of this arrangement than by going it alone?”).

Frankly, both these dimensions are under stress as the cost-benefit equation is out of kilter with current business practice. Plus, the industry is structured differently. The concentration of ownership into fewer players alters the dynamic. As does the multi-platform delivery of advertising – a TV ad on a phone, a radio ad on a computer, a press ad on a screen, etc.

For historic reasons, the majority of JIC investment comes from the media owners. These are now significant sums for the larger players – significant five and six figure sums. If you sweep up the competition, you also sweep up their JIC contributions.

Nowadays, the CEO won’t be popping off to the golf course, thinking what a tremendous contribution the company makes to unpick the mysteries of media. He or she will be wondering what the direct return is to their business. It is right that they should do so. It is how the world works.

In the same organisation, the marketing or research person will look at the their budget and wistfully imagine the possibilities that might abound were it not for the fact that so much of their department’s finance slips through their fingers to be handed to the JIC. Why not keep hold of the money to create something to directly boost the company, preferably taking advantage of some newsworthy technique or source? The research and data options have increased markedly in recent years, adding to temptation.

These trends may lead media owners to question their financial commitment to the JICs. For agencies there is a different dynamic. They have the same opportunities for bespoke projects and similar financial distractions. As they invest relatively little in the JICs they are not taking money away but their attention. The behaviour is just as problematic.

A JIC is a tax and we no longer like taxes. But taxes are about how we order society. They are a support that we owe to each other. There are two reasons to be reluctant to pay your dues. One is selfishness; you would rather that others pay them for you or, failing that, the money you pay is used to your direct benefit. The other is that you are suspicious or, indeed, contemptuous of the ability of the central body to use the money wisely.

These and other pressures mean that investment in audience research is not keeping pace with the demands of a more complex and convoluted marketplace. Without increased outlay, the JICs are constrained in their ability to think ahead, to research and develop.

It is not that the JICs do not wish to innovate. Developments can be blocked for both technical and budget reasons. Sometimes because people fear that the new technique will bring commercial disadvantage to them. Most often, there is no money to develop, despite the will to do so. Whatever the reason, the JIC will be criticised for the lack of modernisation.

One response to the challenge of complexity is to pull together different datasets from varied sources to create a hybrid measurement system. Route is the prime and ground-breaking example of this technique. With the trend in all media to bind more and diverse inputs, the importance of JIC oversight increases. And if advertisers and agencies don’t have the time, expertise or, crucially, interest in getting involved in industry data – but still want it to exist – again the role of the JIC is more important now than ever.

The worst that can happen is that the stakeholders will offer to fill the gap in the JIC’s work with their own sales research. Listen to Big Youth or dust off your bible. By their fruits shall ye know them.

Postar, which was Route’s predecessor, offers a salutary case history; the “cost saving” inclusion of the outputs of one media owner’s study lead to a non-ending negotiation about adopting inputs from everyone else. There was no way out – it was a key factor in Postar’s demise and eventual replacement by Route.

The irony is that so little of this money is actually “ours”. The investment comes mostly from advertisers. The sums that we’re all tugging for love are there because marketing companies shovel heaps of cash into the industry to help them sell their wares. The rest of us – agencies, media owners, auditors, researchers and so on, are the beneficiaries.

I have two questions. What do the clients want? And if they do want independent industry research, are the JICs funded and structured in the best way to deliver it?

Would Unilever, Ford, etc, prefer their investment to be used to understand how a medium works and to ensure that it is traded openly and transparently, or are they happy that an increasing slice is devoted to demonstrating the specific claims of one media vehicle over another or one agency verses the next? Perhaps it is time for our parents to bang some heads together and set out some new rules for the family.

If it is to be the JIC model or a variant thereof, is it possible to remove the burden of funding from the media owners and find a more equitable method of support, one that involves all stakeholders equally – clients, agencies and media owners? Perhaps we can find a way to take these six figure sums off the media owners’ P&L and remove some of the angst about the expenditure.

Whatever, I sense there is a great opportunity to clarify what is needed and do something better. The present state of things may well be reaching the end of the road. To paraphrase the mighty Roy Cousins, “come and go with me to a better place where we find peace and love.”