TV Spot purchasing GRP, changing from Household to All Individual +
“Recording Playback Rating”

Recently, TV stations in the Kanto-area (which is the major TV area of Japan) have declared the introduction of a new index/pointer to purchase TV Spot GRP.

Though TV Spot purchasing GRP has referred to the Household Rating up to now, TV stations have recently announced to advertisers that the “GRP will refer to All-Individual plus the Recording Playback Rating from the year 2018.”

SPI, a pioneer of strategic/statistical media planning/analysis and a pioneer in the media buying audit sector in Japan, encouraging optimization of marketing ROI and achievement of transparency / accountability, has analyzed the announcement put together by the Japan TV stations and its repercussions.

The announcement has been analyzed from the standpoint of the five issues below:

1) Process of agreement between TV stations and advertisers
2) Risk analysis of the All Individual Rating
3) Risk analysis of the Recording Playback Rating
4) How advertisers should currently take actions against this issue
5) Fundamental problems found within this issue

1) The Process of Agreement between TV Stations and Advertisers
The fundamental problem with the announcement is that TV stations made it without any official discussions or agreements with advertisers.
TV stations are expected to be accountable as responsible marketing partners of advertisers, however on this issue there has been no technical verification, risk analysis or opportunity to discuss for mutual understanding.

2) Risk analysis of the All-Individual Rating It is a significant and general trend to incorporate the Individual Rating into the TV Spot purchase GRP.
However at the moment there is no inclusion of Segmented Target GRP (such as F20-34), only a ‘total’ All Individual Rating, so we doubt its effectiveness in improving the marketing efficiency of TVCMs.

We would also need to confirm the change of the adjustment INDEX from Household Cost to All Individual Cost set by TV stations with no objective analysis from a third party.

3) Risk analysis of the Recording Playback Rating
SPI proposes that advertisers strongly reject the announced TV station plan.
It goes against the purpose of using the TV Spot because regardless of how your TVCM reaches its target Out of Campaign Term, you will have to pay the costs for that. We feel that the actual objective of TV stations in unilaterally deciding on this plan is to simply increase their total GRP as ‘space for sale’ by adding the Recording Playback Rating to the real time rating.

We cannot help coming to the conclusion that this is an extremely self-profit oriented move.

4) How advertisers should currently take actions against this issue
Now is the time for advertisers to show serious courage and take a strong stance in rejecting this one sided process with nonsensical ideas such as inclusion of a ‘Recording Playback Rating’ with the goal of at least postponing its implementation.
The JAA (Japan Advertisers Association) has already begun tackling this issue, however each advertiser should also show similar support against it by protesting directly to TV stations via advertising agencies.

5) Fundamental problems found within this issue
TV media in Japan goes to more inefficient, non-transparent and far from the fundamental needs of advertisers with the adoption of this resolution. The resolution also goes against marketing/advertising trends.
TV media in Japan is very much like a monopoly market — TV broadcasters need an official license from the Japanese government and only five commercial terrestrial networks are allowed to have a license. Therefore there is almost no competition at this point in time.
Furthermore, as the TVCM has been a very profitable business for advertising agencies in Japan up to this point, such agencies tend to ignore the downward trends of the TV rating and continue to pour the bulk of their budgets into TVCMs.

There is only one way to overcome the repercussions of this situation – advertisers must turn up marketing activity by themselves as well as from themselves, NOT by depending on agencies and most certainly NOT via any sort of passive attitude / stance.

SPI sincerely hopes that TV media and advertising agencies direct ways of TVCM purchasing towards becoming better for advertisers; such a move would help improve the effectiveness / efficiency of TVCMs while increasing TVCM spending.

To summarize, advertisers must show a strong will & stance to reject the one sided process very recently announced by the collective group of Japan TV stations. The goal should be to halt, or at the very least postpone, the implementation of the senseless idea of a ‘Recording Playback Rating.’
SPI monitors this process, analyzes to show appropriate implication for all marketers and advertisers.

Shiro Kokue,
Senior Consultant

Ayumi Watanabe,
Senior Analyst / Assistant Manager of Public Relations

Ai Ono,
Junior Analyst

Please contact us with questions or for more detailed information.
spiindex@spi-consultants.net