The Publisher Research Council (PRC) and Broadcast Research Council (BRC) have opened up access to its Socio-Economic Measure (SEM) to allow media planners to give clients a stable picture of a household’s status.
Until now, planners haven’t been able to access the actual scorecard or calculators needed to ‘get under the hood and really understand the SEM’s workings,’ said Peter Langschmidt, lead consultant to the PRC.
Prior to this, the PRC would deliver a presentation, remove the score sheet and slide, then send users a 19-page contract to sign first. The unwieldy process could take weeks to finalise, thus leading to a loss of momentum. ‘This is a great step forward in ensuring the take-up and ease of use of the SEM,’ said the PRC’s CEO, Josephine Buys.
Because the score sheet is no longer secret, and the SEM is open source, the PRC has already added tools such as the SEM calculator to its website. It indicates how South Africans live based on what they have access to in and near their homes. The addition of tools such as this form part of a more extensive plan to educate and share learnings with users.
The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa now hosts a dropdown menu featuring a downloadable SEM user guide, while the PRC itself has created a series of infographics to enable further understanding of the SEM.
SEM provides marketers with a balanced and real targeting tool when it comes to income, lifestyle, race, geography and much more. Ensuring increased access will allow marketers to re-orientate and reboot their thinking around South Africa’s population.
