CIMM Considers iPhone-Based Study

CIMM, the coalition of major US firms formed last September to investigate new ways of researching audiences in the multimedia age, is discussing the use of iPhones to collect diary-style media consumption data from a panel of around 1,000 US consumers.

A report in the Wall Street Journal says CIMM is talking to New York-based Media Behavior Institute LLC (MBI) about a survey for possible launch in the autumn, offering participants an iPhone in exchange for agreeing to report their media use as often as every half hour, using a tailor-made app.

If successful and if funding can be made to fit, the project would be repeated either annually or twice a year. CIMM appears to have a budget of just under $1m for the study - out of about $1.75m raised by CIMM from its sixteen full members and six non-voting members to date. MBI co-founder Jim Spaeth told the WSJ: 'Right now we are trying to figure out how to make the budget fit the funding'.

Reports suggest there may be a level of frustration within CIMM, which has been in existence for just under a year and has struggled to get sufficient buy-in from data owners for its previously-stated first priority, finding a better model for measurement of set-top box (STB) usage. In May, the Coalition introduced the Set-Top-Box (STB) Lexicon, a common set of more than 800 terms of use for analyzing and processing STB measurement, and CIMM's MD Jane Clark told the WSJ this week she had 'not given up hope' of getting an STB pilot done by the end of the year.

CIMM's founding members and participating companies are TV content providers, media agencies and advertisers and include AT&T; CBS, NBC, News Corporation, Omnicom Media Group, IPG Mediabrands, P&G, Starcom MediaVest Group Worldwide, Time Warner, Unilever, Viacom and Walt Disney.

Web site: www.cimm-us.org .