One year ago this week, tapscan canada, a Toronto-based firm that has built its business analyzing radio ratings data, introduced its tvscan product to the Canadian market.
Painless
Drew Simpson, vice-president and general manager of the Canadian operation (Tapscan’s head office is in Birmingham, Ala.) says the pc-based software program makes painless the complex and time-consuming process of planning and scheduling multi-station, multi-week, flighted and non-flighted campaigns.
(A flighted campaign is one in which a client advertises during specific periods over the campaign’s duration. For example, the client may buy only weeks one, three and five of a five-week schedule.)
Simpson says tvscan allows clients to plan a campaign with many reach and frequency variations.
Schedule
Once clients have defined their goals in terms of budget, reach and frequency, tvscan can automatically schedule a buy to attain the most cost-efficient placement.
Simpson says it all adds up to ‘quality grps.’
Says Simpson: ‘Gross Ratings Points are kind of like the currency in television. grps are made up of two components. Reach, or what percentage of the target group you are reaching, and frequency, or how many times you are hitting that target. grp is reach times frequency. So 100 grps can be a reach of 50 and a frequency of two or vice-versa.
‘A quality grp is one that is balanced,’ he says. ‘One that allows you to reach as many people as many times as possible.’
Simpson says since the product’s introduction to the Canadian market, the company has managed to sign up a dozen tv clients including kvos in Vancouver, cfcn in Calgary, the mctv group of stations in Northern Ontario and Canadian Communications in Toronto, a rep shop for stations in the u.s. and Canada.
The company will install a tvscan application in Newfoundland next month. BYS
