Factsheet
The European Media & Marketing Survey (EMS) is the first survey to measure both international media and national media, TV, print and websites, offering an in-depth view of media usage among Europe's affluent target groups. Since 1996 the EMS results are published every year. The European Media & Marketing Survey is the way ahead for today's European marketing and media planning.
EMS covers the main income earners living in the top 20% of households in each of 20 survey countries in Europe. The EMS database contains about 34,000 respondents representing 46 million affluent Europeans. It provides a wealth of data for planning and buying pan-European media campaigns for a range of clients.
EMS contains readership data for nearly 400 national and international print titles, including in-flight magazines for all major airlines. For the same informants EMS also measures viewing of 150 national and international TV channels and over 60 local and international websites.
The survey consists of an initial telephone screening interview, conducted with a random, nationally representative sample of telephone households in each country (random digit dialing). This identifies whether the household qualifies for EMS and selects the eligible respondents.
Additional "boost interviews" are conducted in order to increase the sample of individuals of the highest status. In the telephone interview, also the media data (print, TV and Internet) and key classification data are collected. All telephone interviews are done from our European Data Collection Center in Amsterdam in the native languages of the respondent.
Since 2009 fieldwork for the first survey is also conducted online. For the online fieldwork the same questionnaire is used as for the telephone fieldwork. The wording of the questions is adjusted to self-completion and logos were added to each media title to increase the recognition of the title. The online respondents match the same qualifications as the telephone respondents. Fieldwork is conducted 2/3 CATI and 1/3 online. The online fieldwork is conducted by our fieldwork partners ViewsNet, SSI, Research Now, Ciao and GMI.
Follow up questionnaire
Respondents to the telephone interview are asked if they are willing to provide further information via an online self-completion questionnaire. In the follow-up questionnaire marketing data as well as awareness and opinions of leading companies are collected. Since 2007 the follow up questionnaire also covers a broad variety of digital topics, from the usage of digital media through the usage and ownership of digital devices such as cell phones, PDA, iPod and Laptops.
Interviewing is conducted on a continuous basis during the whole year, and spread evenly over six days of the week. The self-completion questionnaire is sent to the respondents within a few weeks after their telephone interview.
The Select universe within EMS focuses entirely on the top end of the EMS universe, and is therefore with 9,5 million Europeans a lot smaller. EMS Select is composed of the three boost groups of EMS: top managers, high-income earners with an annual personal income of €80,000 or more, and frequent flyers who make 6 or more international business flights. EMS Select provides a representative sample of the top 3% in each of 16 European countries.
EMS is issued twice a year as a two-year database.
