Stuart Wilkinson is the Managing Director of BPA Worldwide for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. BPA Worldwide is the only global auditor of media. mediaME talked to Stuart about BPA achievements and the level of awarness in the region. Q1. Please introduce yourself and tell us about BPA. My name is Stuart Wilkinson and I am the Managing Director of BPA Worldwide for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. BPA Worldwide is the only global auditor of media. It is also the world’s largest independent, not-for-profit auditor of business to business media and that means we can offer standards that are applied uniformly around the world. Now in its 76th year, BPA has more than 2600 advertisers and media buyers within its worldwide membership, and we audit more than 2500 media properties across 25 countries, including more than 2000 business to business publications. A BPA audit enables a media owner to target and compete for advertising spend by providing media buyers and advertisers with independently audited data. Media buyers and advertisers, in turn, will use independent metrics like this as a way of informing their buying decisions and protecting their interests. Third party audits represent the buyer’s only reliable assurance against misleading, exaggerated or sometimes fraudulent claims. We specialise in multimedia audit, including consumer press, newspapers, expos, website, email newsletters, database and other media containing advertising. This includes media circulation on an international or global basis by a publisher in another territory. This ensures comparability for advertisers and media buyers of media across national boundaries. Q2. How long has BPA been operating in the Middle East and inform us of 'landmark' achievements. BPA Worldwide established an office in Dubai in June 2006 and its Middle East Advisory Board, which was formed around the same time, provides input to BPA from local buyers and sellers. The current membership of 15 people comprises eight representing advertisers and agencies and seven media owners. BPA is currently investing $1.5 million in new online software that will assist in BPA audits worldwide while offering live assistance to circulation managers. The most recent landmark achievement has been breaking through the hundred print titles to be audited in the Middle East for the first time. What’s important about that is that we now either audit or have applications for membership from media owners in Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates and we expect to soon sign up our first titles in Qatar and Kuwait. We also now have interactive and event audits taking place in the Middle East as well as print audits. Q3. How does BPA's methodology and service differ from other auditing services also available in the Middle East? The most important aspect of our work is to achieve transparency, comparability and to add value to the numbers with additional information that media owners can either use as part of their marketing packs, and media buyers can use to refine their buying decisions. Each medium has its own reporting format, appropriate to that particular medium. For print business and consumer publications, we verify all-paid, all-controlled, or any combination of paid and controlled circulation, reported in a single document, with each type of circulation broken out. We can also report and audit demographics. Web site audits employ a new tag-enabled census methodology to document traffic. This new solution will create a level playing field with a single set of standards—provided on a constant basis—performed by one analytics tool—that advertisers and agencies can trust as accurate. A single, standard web measuring system across BPA membership eliminates any guesswork on why data is different amongst competitive sites. Event attendance audits may be enhanced with verification of a variety of research-based attendee demographics. Q4. How would you compare the region's awareness to the importance of auditing, relative to other regions? And tell us about online media auditing. Buyer demand has clearly been one of the reasons behind the way in which media owners in the region have recognised the value of independent auditing. From the outset there has been a move led by international and regional advertisers, supported particularly by local offices of international agencies, to put the industry onto a comparable footing with the rest of the world in order to help it attract a larger slice of incoming advertising revenue. Although there was initially some resistance, we went out of our way to adapt to the particular social and cultural needs of the region but, crucially, we have remained firm in our insistence that international standards are adhered to in order to give the region credibility in the eyes of international and global advertisers. And I think it’s because of that that we have seen the drive towards accountability extending out from Dubai into other areas of the GCC. Changing the way online media is audited and reported is the next big breakthrough for us. We recently announced that, in co-operation with Nielsen Online, we will be bundling enhanced website traffic measurement with all print and event audits without increasing existing dues and fees. What this means is that BPA members around the world will have near real time online reporting of audited web activity included with circulation audit of print products and attendance at exhibitions or events. It means media owners and buyers will be able to see in far greater and more immediate detail the geographic and demographic breakdown of visitors to their web sites and compare this with the readership of the print titles to get a feel for the whole reach of the media brand. BPA members will now be able to access website traffic information—including page impressions, unique browsers, users sessions, unique browser frequency, user session duration, page duration and an executive summary of the above—on an unlimited basis to retrieve nearly-real time data, 24 hours-a-day, seven days a week. The ability to select by market sector or specific site also exists. Members can print or download website traffic information based on daily, weekly, monthly or historical reports, or forward the traffic data directly to sales staff or prospective advertisers. Q5. Looking to the future, how much growth do you anticipate in the region and which markets are the most promising? Media owners have responded to this demand and deserve considerable credit for the progress that has been made. The evidence for this lies in the fact that we are auditing all forms of media in the region, not just print. Albeit print understandably leads the way, In Jordan, we are auditing our first event and we now have a number of interactive and online properties on track for reporting their traffic data in 2009. Media owners in the region have a more developed understanding of how to use an audit to market their media brand. We expect this to gain momentum as our recently announced, near-real time web auditing service within the cost of an existing print audit, begins to come on stream.