The IPA TouchPoints2 Integrated Planning Database will be launched this Thursday (16th October) at the IPA. This launch marks the second phase of IPA TouchPoints2, following the publication of the IPA TouchPoints2 SuperHub database in July.

The IPD allows practitioners to plan across all media included on the survey – television, print, radio, cinema, outdoor, event sponsorship, direct mail, SMS and online - we are also delighted to announce the incorporation of a search metric for the first time. This means that users can create and evaluate multi-media scenarios against a wide range of communications objectives and audiences, with combined coverage and frequency as key outputs.

The database allows all media channels to be considered early in the planning process and provides insight into how those channels can work together and separately for defined target markets. TouchPoints offers the unique opportunity to target consumers according to behaviour rather than just by broad demographics. It is about what real people do.

The IPD has been created by integrating the established media industry currencies ( BARB, NRS, JICREG, POSTAR,  RAJAR, FAME and TGI) onto the TouchPoints SuperHub survey to create a multi–media database,  this maintains the audience definitions and sizes of the existing media currencies. For those media  which do not have an established industry currency (e.g. internet/search, SMS and direct mail) we have created a standard series of probabilities which allows users to feed in data from other proprietary sources to produce a true multi-media picture. The database is available for analysis through IMS, KMR and Telmar.

Says Lynne Robinson, IPA Research Director, "The IPD is a huge technical challenge, however, we are delighted that we have been able to improve and extend the work pioneered in TouchPoints1. The IPD allows communications planners to have a robust means of evaluating multi-media communication allowing users to make far more informed channel choices. Together, the IPA TouchPoints SuperHub and IPD deliver a unique planning and evaluation tool which can be used in all stages of the planning process."

Current subscribers to the TouchPoints survey include:

Agencies
All Media Services
All Response Media
Arena BLM
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
BJK&E
Brilliant
Carat
Fallon
Feather Brooksbank
Initiative Media
John Ayling and Associates
Manning Gottleib OMD
McCann-Erickson (London)
McCann-Erickson (Manchester)
Media Planning Group
Mediacom
Mediacom Manchester
Mediaedge:CIA
Mediaedge:CIA (Manchester)
MediaVest (Manchester)
Mindshare
OMD UK
PHD Media
PHD Media North
Posterscope
Publicis
Starcom MediaVest
Universal McCann Central
Universal McCann London
Vizeum
ZenithOptimedia

Media Owners
Associated Newspapers
Ids
ITV
JCDecaux
News International
Orange
Scottish Television
Thinkbox
Yahoo

Advertisers
COI

For more information, please visit the TouchPoints website