How can I use duplication to my advantage?

August 9, 2012

Duplicated audience refers to the percentage of one station’s cumulative audience that also listens to another station during a specified daypart.  Simply put, duplication can be thought of as shared listeners between two stations.

According to Arbitron, you can use duplication to show:

• The efficiencies gained by using different combinations of stations.
• How overall station size isn’t everything if you’re using multiple stations.  The mix of stations is just as important as the size.
• The sizeable audience you can’t reach by using a specific station.

One of the most common issues I hear from clients is that an advertiser is not considering their station because they believe another station on the buy reaches their audience.

So you pull a duplication report hoping to dispel this misconception and allow you to return to said advertiser with results showing low duplication among the stations.  “See here, Mr./Ms. Advertiser, station WAAA only reaches 15% of my audience.”  While this is a great scenario, is this your only option?  What if the results are that station WAAA reaches 50% of your audience?  Is it time to admit defeat?

Don’t limit yourself to focusing on the duplicated audience.  Instead, what about the unduplicated audience, the other 50%?  “See here, Mr./Ms. Advertiser, 50% of my audience is NOT listening to WAAA!”  But, what does that really mean?

Again, don’t limit yourself.

Let your advertisers know what that 50% represents and means for them.  Depending on your station and market, 50% can be anywhere from 25,000 to 400,000 consumers.  Are these consumers not valuable?  Isn’t it more powerful to state “Your message will reach 100,000 Adults 25-54 who do not listen to WAAA”?

And you don’t have to limit yourself to quantitative data.  Duplication is also available qualitatively.  Many of you may be unaware of this since Scarborough doesn’t feature a duplication report, per se, but under Profile Reports, when choosing categories, you have a “Not” option.  Start by double-clicking your station so it appears under selected categories, then click it once to highlight, select “Not” and then choose the competitor.  This can give you the ability to state something like, “Your message will reach 30,000 Adults 25-54 planning to purchase a new vehicle in the next year who do not listen to WAAA.”

This qualitative duplication can also be done in The Media Audit via a Duplication Reach report.  Choose “Duplication Reach” and simply highlight the radio stations you want to compare, click “OK,” highlight your category, and click “OK” again.

And, also keep in mind that you are not limited to showing duplication, or rather, un-duplication, on a one-to-one station basis.  You can show your group vs. other groups, or your station vs. a combination of all other stations on the buy.  We were once able to help a client show that 41% of their cluster did not listen to any of the other eight stations on the buy, which boiled down to “101,391 Women 25-49 will not hear your message if WAAA is not part of your radio buy.”   This became one of the lead statements of their presentation.

Arbitron offers more tips on duplication under “How this Report Could Help You” in TapWeb.  And, we at RDI are here to help as well.

-Karen Blanks, Sales Research Consultant

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