GfK MRME announced the results of the much awaited Print Readership Survey for Kuwait at a Press Conference that was attended by all local Media, Media Buying Units and Major Advertisers.The study consists of two waves and currently Wave I is competed and the basis for the results.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Tomas Krasny who is the Regional Lead of Audience Measurement, GfK CEE-META said that this study marks the first of many in the region. 

Dr Krasny said "GfK Media Research Middle East is totally committed to the MENA region and the Print Readership Survey is the fruit of several months of hard work. GfK MRME has the mandate to provide a full set of high caliber Media Research Studies and Tools for Media Studies in MENA. We have also currently begun work on the Television Audience measurement in Lebanon with the latest technology; results are expected next year. More projects and markets will be announced shortly. Our focus will be to eventually cover the entire region for TV, Print, Radio and online measurement. Such Studies will make the life of media planners much easier and bring about a growth in media and eventually the local economies due to the granularity, awareness and greater efficiency for businesses."

Mr Tarek Ammar, Regional Director, GfK MRME presented the highlights of the Print Readership Survey, "We gathered here a year ago announcing GfK MRME plans, and here we are as promised delivering our first Readership Survey covering all newspapers, main magazines and periodicals."

The Survey will be supported with a published booklet that will highlight the strengths of each publication. Clients will receive detailed reports and as well access to Media Planning tools that will enable them to create efficient plans.

"The ratio of readers of newspapers is around 68%, and for weeklies around 37% and monthlies 17%. Hence, each percentage point counts. The survey clearly shows that different nationalities and segments had major difference in readership, making media planning a necessity. The generic approach of using a couple of major publications will no longer be efficient due to the difference between target groups. Further the inclusion of some lifestyle parameters in this study had made it more meaningful to advertisers who can now associate readership with brand and category usage. We certainly hope through this initiative to encourage advertisers, and especially local ones to use media planning in distributing their media spend, or at least to know the cost of not following the optimal plan," he added. 

Dr Tomas Krasny also stressed on GfK's commitment to ethical standards and transparency. He explained that the Print Readership was a fully independent and audited study by a leading European Media Audit organization. In this case of the Print Readership Survey additionally the IAA - Kuwait Chapter has taken a keen role and assisted by providing six independent supervisors who were involved in the audit through the fieldwork. He thanked the IAA Kuwait chapter and its committee chaired by Mr Walid Kanafani for their involvement in helping creating leading practice media research. He added that GfK was sure that in the next few months the Survey would establish itself as the currency for Print Media in Kuwait as already major media has subscribed to the Survey.

Mr Kanafani added, "It was an important experience for us in the International Advertising Association; as you know we are not specialists in research and statistical studies, so we did not interfere at all in the work of GfK, the methodology used, or in the development of the questionnaire, in order to retain the professionalism and independence of the study. However we were present while the interviews were taking place and we listened to a selection of interviews live as well as some of the recording and learned firsthand of the workflow. We thank the transparency of GfK, and as you know we are ready to do the same with any of the other research companies."

GfK MRME's Print Readership Survey will be supported by the latest Media Planning software that will be locally available for clients. The software has necessary features like an optimization tools that automatically recommends the most efficient plan to reach a given target. Mr Murzban Daruwalla announced that GfK would provide a multi-level user support structure to clients for the software and that a training workshop for clients would be held in the coming months to help users gain maximum advantage from the tool. Any Media, Media Buying Unit or advertiser who was interested in attending the workshop should contact him to ensure they secure a place for the workshop.

Work on initiating the Wave II of the Print Readership Survey was already in progress and the results would be announced by the end of the year