Where It’s At: Out of Home

With Nielsen set to replace up to 75% of the PPM panel with new wearable meters by the end of 2022, PPM market stations need to take into consideration the coming shift in PPM panelist psychographics. The new program includes a companion smartphone app to retrieve listening data from the wearables and transmit it back to Nielsen. From the panelists’ perspective, however, that new smartphone app keeps track of their listening/carry incentives. It seems obvious that respondents will become even more focused on rewards and contests as the panel shifts to wearables.

Making sure you’re targeting contests to maximize ratings lift makes all the sense in the world. With more workers returning to the workplace in 2022, the ratings game is played and won OUTSIDE THE HOME. Even when we conducted our 19^th NuVoodoo Ratings Prospect Study in the first quarter of 2022, about 2/3 of those with a job in our sample reported working outside the home most or all the time (as shown in the chart below).  We’ll be in the field in the coming weeks to update our findings.

Overall, just over a fifth were working from home most to all days of the week. And likely ratings respondents were even more likely to work outside the home, with nearly three in four of the “RPS Yes” ratings prospects reported heading to their job out of home most to all days of the week. The chart below shows that out-of-home numbers eke up even higher among the most valuable listeners of all: the subset of RPS Yes ratings prospects who listen to broadcast radio at least an hour a day (labeled “RPS60”). 75% of RPS 60’s reported commuting to a job most to all days of the week.

As NuVoodoo marketing guru PJ Kling notes, “You won’t get an ‘A’ on your ratings report card if your contest doesn’t motivate change in the behavior the RPS 60’s.”

Our data shows that not only do more listeners who are likely to participate in the ratings work outside their homes, those who work outside their homes spend more time listening to radio (compared with those who work from their homes). In the chart below, the panel on the left shows the at-work listening choices of those working mostly or only outside their homes. On the right, the smaller group who work mostly or only FROM home.

Both sets of numbers are shown as percentages of the complete workforce in our sample. But, as a starting point, remembering that the RPS 60’s are the most important listeners of all, compare the two groups. If you’re working FROM HOME, you’re as likely to be listening to some source OTHER THAN AM/FM while you work – 12% either way. If you’re an RPS 60 working OUTSIDE THE HOME, you’re more likely to be listening to radio.

When designing and subsequently marketing your contest or promotion, you’re better off focusing on out of home listeners. By marketing your cash giveaway to folks working outside the home, not only are you fishing where the fish are from a TSL standpoint – you are, in effect, enticing the same critical listeners with reminders about your cash promotion that Nielsen is upselling with cash bonuses throughout the day via their companion app.

PJ and I share additional insights in a video about promotional tactics – as well as recommendations about how get the biggest bang with your promotion budget in light of the changing shift in panelists.