Using MRI - Mediamark Reporter

DESCRIPTION | LOGGING ON | SELECTING A STUDY | SEARCHING: Limiting Your Results, Keyword Searching  | INTERPRETING THE DATA | TARGET REPORTS | SUMMARY REPORTS | PRINTING/SAVING | ASSISTANCE

DESCRIPTION

Mediamark Reporter provides information on demographics, lifestyles, product and brand usage, and advertising media preferences reported by a sample of over 25,000 United States consumers.  The electronic version covers Fall and Spring 1995 to Spring 1998.  The print collection covers 1996 (request printed volumes at the Circulation Desk).

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LOGGING ON

Mediamark Reporter is available only on specific workstations in the Birnbaum Library Reference area.  Please ask the librarian on duty which workstation you should use.

To access the database, double click on the icon labeled MRI Mediamark Reporter.

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SELECTING A STUDY

Once you have entered the database, you should see an alphabetical list of available studies.  To confirm that you are viewing all available studies, check to see that all three menus in the Show only box are set to All.  Each study covers a broad product category.  Within each broad category, you can find reports on more specific kinds of products.  

• Scroll through the list to select a study. 
• Once you have selected the study you would like to access, click on Pick this Study.
• You are brought to the Mediamark Reporter Table of Contents screen for the study you have selected.

In the above example, you see the contents of the Beverages category from the Spring 1998 study.

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SEARCHING

The following example illustrates a Mediamark Reporter search for information on consumers of a specific product group.

Suppose that you are developing a print marketing campaign for an energy drink, and you want to know who your target market is (in terms of age, income, education, family structure, etc.), and what magazines they read.

• Scroll down in the Beverages menu and highlight Beverages: Energy Drinks
• Click the DemoMedia Report button, or press Enter.  You can limit the list of product usage reports to those dealing with a particular demographic base (e.g. "Women").  By default, the database shows you reports on all demographic bases.

• Suppose that you want to target your campaign toward people who are likely to buy a lot of energy drinks.  You can select Heavy: More Than 5 Drinks Last 30 Days (Adults) to see demographic and media consumption information specifically about adults who are heavy users of energy drinks.

The resulting report should tell you who your target market is in demographic terms, what kinds of media they use (e.g. radio, television) and at what time of day, and even what channels they watch and what magazines they read.

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Limiting Your Results

The report that we generated in the above example is several pages long.  For practical reasons, you may want to limit your results to show only certain variables.  To do so:

• Click on the Table format button.
• You are brought to the Table format screen where you can limit your column and row criteria.  All columns and rows are selected by default.  If you want to limit your output to certain rows, click on Clear to deselect all rows.

• To select the rows you want to see, double click double click on the individual items so that a bullet appears in the left margin.
• The Options button provides an easier method of selecting criteria by which to limit.  Click on Options to see the following screen:

• Select Demos and Mags-Sports to see only demographic information and sports magazine readership. Click OK.
• This will return you to the Table format screen.  Notice that only the variables that you selected (demographic variables and magazine titles in the sports category) are now highlighted.
• To sort your results by a certain column, use the Sort by menu to select Index, Proj(000), Pct. Down, or Pct. Across (see the section below on Interpreting the Data for more information on the Mediamark Reporter column headers).
• You can create customized report headings and footers by clicking on the Report headings button.
• Click OK to see the resulting table.

Keyword Searching

Mediamark Reporter's Search option allows you to search for a specific product across a number of study categories.  To perform a keyword search:

• Log on to the database, or, if it is already open, click on Change Study to return to the Available Studies screen.
• Click the Search button.
• Type the term you would like to search for in the space provided.  In the Search only box the default is set to All for Report, Year and Type.  You can change these settings if you want to limit to a particular report, year or study type.
• Click Search.

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INTERPRETING THE DATA

The data that Mediamark provides is presented in five columns: Total '000, Proj '000, Percent Down, Percent Across, and Index.  See the example and definitions below.

Total '000

Mediamark Reporter Total Population - estimated number of adults age 18+ in the United States at the time the study was published. Remember to add the three 000s to the end of whatever number is given.

Proj '000 = Projected

This number represents the projected total number of adults who fall into the category described by the table, and who meet the row criterion in question.  In the example above, a projected 9,801,000 adults (6,586,000 of whom are men) in the United States consumed 5 or more energy drinks in the last 30 days.

Percent Down

The percentage of people who have a certain characteristic defined by a column heading.  Notice that 100% corresponds to the people meeting the table's criterion and not to the population as a whole.  In the example above, 19.2% of the projected total of 9,801,000 heavy users of energy drinks graduated from college (projected graduated college divided by  projected total, 1881÷9801).

Percent Across

The percentage of people who have a certain characteristic as defined by a row heading.  In this example, 8.8% of adults age 18-24 had more than 5 energy drinks in the last 30 days.  This is based on the projected population of that age group divided by the total population of that age group (2191÷24842).

Index

This number indicates selectivity; that is, which group, compared to the total population, meet the criteria of the row and the column.  It's calculated by dividing the Percent Across of a group (e.g. Adults, Men, Women, Graduated College, 18-24, Employed Full Time ...) by the Percent Across of the universe concerned (e.g. total number of heavy users of energy drinks).  In the above example, adults employed full time are about 10% more likely than the rest of the population to have had more than 5 energy drinks in the last 30 days, (5.5÷5).  The base is 100; 110-100 = 10.  Adults age 45-54 are 21% less likely to have more than 5 drinks last 30 days of Energy Drinks (79-100 = -21).

HINT: You may find it useful to sort your results by the index field.  This will allow you to easily identify demographic categories and/or media audiences who are more likely to use your product.  To sort by index, click on Table Format, then use the Sort by menu to select Index.

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TARGET REPORTS

The Target Report option allows you to pick a product and analyze it in terms of one media or demographic category.  It provides the same type of information as the DemoMedia Report, but is more focused.  To generate a Target Report:

• Select the study of your choice.
• Click on the Target Report button.
• You are brought to this screen, where you can select a product category, and a media or demographic variable:

• To choose a product category, click on the Select button, then double click on the product of your choice.  If this doesn't work, you may need to click on the Clear button before making your selection.
• Scroll down through the media category to select the variable you are interested in.  
• Click on OK to view the report.
• To generate a target report using demographic variables, click in the circle next to Demos and scroll down to the preferred category.

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SUMMARY REPORTS

The Summary Report option allows you to access general information about your product.  You can find out the total amount consumed by the relevant study group (e.g. adults), the proportion of that group who use certain brands, and the proportion of that group who are light, medium and heavy users of the product in question.  To generate a summary report:

• Once you have selected a study, highlight the category that you want to see (in this example,  Beverages: Energy Drinks).
• Click the Summary button in the upper right corner of the screen.  The resulting report should look like the image below:

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PRINTING/SAVING

• To print, click on the printer button labeled Print.  Your table will be sent to the Birnbaum Library printer.  Printouts cost 15 cents per page and can be retrieved using a copy card.  Ask the librarian at the reference desk for more information.
• To export the report as an Excel, Lotus, MRI+, dBase, or some other file format, click on the Work sheet button.

  

• Select the appropriate format, choose the A:\ drive to save your worksheet to a diskette, then click the Save button.
• You can now use the appropriate software to manipulate your data in whatever way you like.

ASSISTANCE

For a detailed explanation of various table reports, click on the Help button.

Choices II - Simmons Study of Media and Markets, also available in the Birnbaum Library, provides information on the buying and media habits of consumers of the United States.  Choices II also provides psychographic information.

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