GfK Retail & Technology claims it would not have won the radio ratings contract in Australia held by Nielsen for the last 66 years without the electrical retailing industry. GfK was awarded the new radio audience measurement contract yesterday after a five month tender process.
SGfK Australia managing director, Gary Lamb, described winning the radio audience measurement contract from Nielsen as “a remarkable achievement” and said that the news was greeted by “spontaneous cheering and applause” from the company’s 100 staff members.
“I really would like to thank our retail tracking and ConsumerScope clients for their continued support over the years — support which has allowed us to demonstrate our market knowledge and research credentials; and, more importantly, support that has given us the secure foundation from which we’ve been able to build such a compelling solution for the radio industry,” Lamb said.
“The nature of what constitutes ‘a radio’ is changing — we can now listen to radio on any web-enabled device — and this change is affecting listening behaviour.
“From our position as experts in the consumer technology markets, we are ideally placed to be able to monitor and predict those changes: we can measure the devices that are being purchased, and we’ll be supplementing that data with consumer research on how people are listening to radio. This will add a whole new dimension to our understanding of what’s affecting the trends in the radio audience measurement figures.
“Importantly for the radio industry, we will be bringing some innovative approaches to the recruitment of respondents and to data collection techniques, that will future-proof the measurement for years to come.
“I’d like to save my biggest ‘thank you’ for the staff of GfK. The local team has been amazing, but we’ve also received incredible support from our colleagues overseas. It’s a cliché, but this really has been a genuine team effort.”