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RSSThe answer is yes, of course.
Why? Let me count the ways.
1) They already exist, even if they are not used or obviously available.
2) Advertisers who spend most of their money in traditional media (the majority) are used to this metric, along with reach and frequency as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) in evaluating media plans.
3) GRPs are simple to compute.
4) They don't have to be the only or even primary metric for the Web, but they can be an important data point.
5) If using them makes it easier to sell your plan through, why not?
There are those who say that the Web should go beyond the GRP. Don't use old metrics when you can use new ones, they say. I agree that new metrics should be used wherever possible. But cross-media comparability is important in providing the evidence to a traditional advertiser that makes it easy for them to approve a plan. So, why not use the metric?
There are others who say that they don't see GRPs reported out anywhere, so what the heck are we talking about? Here's a simple Media Math 101 lesson.
A GRP (or a rating point) represents 1% of the audience measured. Traditionally, as TV households represent virtually 100% (actually 98 point something) of the U.S., TV households are commonly used as the denominator in any equation. This then produces an apples-to-apples comparison on a cross-media basis. But you can use total U.S. households as the denominator, too. The numerator is the number of impressions. For your information, Nielsen reports that there are 114,890,000 total households and 112,800,000 TV households in the U.S.
Using TVHH as the denominator, if you have a campaign that has 5MM impressions, it would then have 4.4 GRPs. It's as simple as that. Many clients use the concept of TRPs, which are target audience rating points. The computation for this is a little more complex, as you have to determine the U.S. universe for the target (again, Nielsen is a good source). For target audience impressions, just multiply the total impressions by the percent composition. Divide that into the TA universe and you have TRPs.
While we do not generally have easily accessible reach and frequency data for the Web (that's a whole other article), we do have a number of R/F estimating tools from NetRatings, comScore and the third-party ad servers. While each of these has its limitations, they are helpful in estimating Web reach and frequency for combination with traditional media efforts to demonstrate the overall reach and frequency for your client. Remember that the formula is reach x frequency = GRPs. In the traditional world, this is generally done on a four-week basis for broadcast and a monthly basis for print.
Using the above concepts, it is fairly easy to build GRP computations into your spreadsheets, as you are reporting out the amount of advertising weight that you are purchasing on each site. As we get more and more into video on the Web, it is only natural that the clients will want to understand the potential impact (in eyeballs) that the Web campaign reaches vs. a TV campaign.
In this world, impressions alone do not tell the full story. Don't limit yourself to this metric, but consider using it as one more way to improve the understanding of your client relative to the amount of advertising you are buying. They will a) get it, and b) quickly see that the cost per GRP for the Web is less than that of TV. Yet another reason to use the Web.
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We've had Reach, Frequency and GRP data in use for quite some time and I've put down some thoughts we and our clients had on this...
Osnat
Your erstwhile brother Albert would have appreciated that it is the relativity across all media that is important rather than the absolute measure. However, I suppose from your relative point of view, that relying on server-based machine metrics (after all it's all pretty simple arithmetic to add things up from a web-log) rather than focussing on people who use the site is the bees knees. Such is the mystique of the web that it thinks it can exist in isolation as a silo from good communications planning.
Someone making speaking some common-sense about on-line marketing. GRPs and R&F are the common idiom of communication planning - how many people saw/heard my communication and how often sounds like a pretty good metric to me, and one that applies to ALL media. Sure each media can add their own bells and whistles but GRPs and R&F should be the bedrock lingua franca. Just maybe, if the online world WERE to report on GRPs and R&F it may lose some of its mystique.
I am saddened when old timers are lured by the 'census quality measurement' of on-line - just like the Sirens lured Jason on the Argo. I say this because it is losing sight of the target of their communications, which should be consumer-centric. Sure on-line is a census - it is a census of machines talking to machines, computer-code talking to computer-code. So if every person in the world was only allowed to use one computer and for each computer only one person was allowed to use it, and there were no such things as bots, crawlers etc, and very importantly no-one ever deleted their cookies which would allow longitudinal analyses, then the data would be just dandy!
The goal of on-line measurement should be to have as its bedrock the measurement of 'viewers not views and searchers not searches'. It's only a small semantic difference but a big difference in meaning and mindset. I am sure that Gian and Josh would agree that it also makes a BIG difference to the 'audience' numbers ... but who in their right mind would want to report smaller numbers.
John Grono GAP Research Sydney Australia
I disagree that the data is any less accessible online than for TV. Less often used, perhaps, but no less accessible.
I'd say more... but then, this comment wouldn't work as a teaser to my column in this space next Tuesday.
However, there's never been any GRP in direct marketing and yet marketers still manage to make both media and direct marketing buys intelligently, understanding the difference between the two.
I agree with James it's kind of hard to compare web and broadcast GRP - certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison for the reason he mentions and because impressions on the web can be video (TV), audio (radio) or web-unique visual (rich media, flash, gif-animated or static that can't be compared to print), etc.
That's why Paula's idea to try to apply media habits (maybe some kind of weighting tool) to the metric the GRP represents may have some merit -- will that be making rocket science of marketing I can't help but wonder though!? Don't forget that metrics are useful, but marketing will always also be part art (not all science) and intuition!
The problem with a GRP measure for the web is that of time, or more properly, "timing." Television (or radio) GRPs make great sense because they measure an audience against the backdrop of a given time period. For TV, a percent of any audience makes sense because everyone being measured is watching at the same time.
One of the strengths of the Web is that it isn't time-bound. That is, the Web isn't a zero sum game. The traditional GRP measures for "broadcast" media simply doesn't fit the Web model. When selling products or services on the Web, I'm ready anytime, anywhere — not just Thursday nights at 10:00PM (9:00PM Central).
Trying to compare the Web to TV with GRPs is an apples-to-mango fruit comparison. The reality, as I see it, is that the core issue isn't over getting GRPs for the Web, its about getting good and meaningful measures. Better still, getting good results from my efforts. The truth about TV GRPs is that they are meaningless if my campaign is ineffective to begin with.