Obtaining and interpreting SMRB and MRI tables

What are SMRB and MRI? What do SMRB and MRI stand for? SMRB (Simmons Market Research Bureau) MRI (Mediamark Research Inc.) One of the most widely used secondary data sources regarding various consumer products Samples: Survey with over 25,000 households in the U.S. twice a year (spring/fall)

What do they offer? MRI and SMRB provide information on the target audience’s Demographics  Age, Gender, Education, Profession Media usage  Cable TV, Magazine (Based on self-reported readership, not circulation data) Product and brand usage (Ex: Shampoo) Consumption level (Heavy, medium, light users) Form of consumption (Bottle, tube) Type of hair (color treated, damaged, dandruff, dry, oily, normal) Specific brand Manufacturer

How to read MRI tables First of all, check the table title and how the base population is defined Total ’000 (unit: thousand)  the US population for each subset Proj ’000 (unit: thousand)  estimated number of subset people who do the defined behavior (e.g., own any MP3 player)

How to read MRI tables Percentage Across  Out of the subset population, the percentage of subset people who do the defined behavior (MP3 player ownership rate within the subset population) Percentage Down  Out of the population who do the defined behavior, the percentage of subset consumers who do the defined behavior

How to read MRI tables “Index” The percent calculated by dividing the Pct Across in a subset row by the Pct Across in the base row A quick and easy indicator of the degree of concentration for each subset Rule of thumb for interpreting “index”: 85 or low  low; 115 or higher  high

There are about 218,289,000 adults (over 18) in the US There are about 39,485,000 adults in the US who are between 25-34

There are about 36,734,000 adults who own at least one MP3 Player in the US About 8,435,000 adults who are between 25-34 own at least one MP3 Player in the US

Pct Across = (6727/28098)*100 = 23.9 23.9% of 18-24 aged US adults own any MP3 Player

Pct Down = (6727/36734)*100 = 18.3 18.3% of adults in the US who own any MP3 Player are between 18-24

Index = (23.9/16.8)*100 = 142 Adults aged 18-24 are about 42% more likely to own any MP3 Player than the rest of population

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MRI-Media Mediamark

Choose Fall or Spring 200X Product Choose/search for brand/category

Portable MP3 Players Adults over 18 Households who own any MP3 Player

Save an Excel spreadsheet or explore data.

Test Yourself 1 If the index for HHI $40-49,999 is 40 and the index for HHI over $150,000 is 240, you would say that people from HHI over $150,000 are about six times as likely to own I-pod as people from HHI $40-49,999.

Test Yourself 2 When you look for advertising media or channel, consider the absolute number of the target as well as its index number.

Test Yourself 2 (cont.) Consider this… ex) Even though the index is 215 for “wired” magazine readers, you have to carefully interpret that number because the total wired reader among MP3 player owners is as low as 817 thousand. On the other hand, for “People” magazine, readers amount to 8,984 thousand even though the index number is 129.