Introduction

The purpose of the Global Media Cost Comparison is to provide information in a standardised, summarised, comparable format, which will help the user determine a broad estimate of a brand’s likely cost of communicating its marketing message. It should not be used to calculate the definitive price of any specific campaign; its role is merely to provide an indication.

Media expenditure, whether at the brand, product category, advertiser or media sector level, can be measured with reasonable precision in many markets. A number of monitoring companies provide this data on a regular basis to advertisers, agencies and the media. On the other hand, reliable media cost information, based on a combination of both media expenditure and audience delivery data, is far harder to come by. What an advertiser ideally wants to know is the likely cost of buying a typical media schedule for his brand(s). The problem is of course that what represents a “typical schedule” for one brand or advertiser will be very different to that for another. For example, TV costs can vary due to a large number of factors: channel mix, daypart mix, flighting, seasonality etc as well as the negotiating power of the agency or advertiser. So the cost of one advertiser’s typical schedule can be very different from another’s. And of course the nature of a typical schedule will vary from market to market.

One factor that has been taken out of the mix is commercial length. Almost all GMCC TV costs are based on a 30-second commercial length, and other standardized formats have been used for other media. The 30-second length also forms the basis for the radio and cinema costs, newspaper costs are based on an A4 size space (black and white) while the magazine costs are based on colour pages. Internet which is new for this year is generally standardised by the banner size 468x60. Where a different format has been used, this is indicated on the output tables.

There will also be differences between countries in the precise definition of the target audience – and this will depend primarily on the way in which these groups are defined in the local media research surveys. For example, in some cases, the “adult” definition refers to all individuals aged over 18, in others this might be 15, 12 or even 10. For the other GMCC audiences there will also be country-by-country variations – and in the case of businessmen, where the data exist, each country has its own distinctive definition.

Subscribers should also note that the GMCC cost data for 2004-2006 were provided by the OMD media agency, while that for earlier years was supplied by Mediaedge:cia.

Accessing the data

The links on the left allow the latest (2006) data to be displayed by country, medium and target audience.

The Country report prompts the user to select an individual country, and then displays six data tables – each with the seven target audiences as column headings and the six media as row headings. The six tables show:

• Cost per 100 GRPs (local currency)
• Cost per thousand (local currency)
• Cost per 100 GRPs (US$)
• Cost per thousand (US$)
• Cost per hundred GRPs index (adults =100)
• Universes

The Medium report prompts the user to select a medium and then displays six data tables, each with the seven target audiences as column headings and countries as row headings. The five tables show:

• Cost per 100 GRPs (local currency)
• Cost per thousand (local currency)
• Cost per 100 GRPs (US$)
• Cost per thousand (US$)
• Universes

The Target Audience report prompts the user to select an audience and then displays five data tables, each with countries as column headings and the seven target audiences as row headings. The five tables show:

• Cost per 100 GRPs (local currency)
• Cost per thousand (local currency)
• Cost per 100 GRPs (US$)
• Cost per thousand (US$)
• Universes

Each report includes appropriate demographic definitions of target audiences and descriptions of data sources used.