I was invited by MRUC India to ratify one of the field briefing sessions followed by a field visit. It was a privilege to be part of this process, and what struck me was the field team’s adherence to the rules and regulations, especially rules relating to selection of households, CWE, and the right hand rule. I was particularly enthused by MRUC India’s sensitivity to avoid “loss in translation” by including multi-language translations of the questionnaire.

MRUC India has tirelessly pursued its objective of promoting and providing objective, state of the art media research for the benefit of its users. It has done this largely with the help of selfless pro bono time contributed by many of its members. During my term as Chairman, we were able to supplement these efforts with the hiring of a professional, full-time salaried CEO to help take MRUC India to a new level. The biggest challenge to MRUC India remains certain vested interests who mistakenly perceive the promotion of state of the art media research as being inimical to their business interests."

MRUC India has done tremendously well ever since it was formed in the early 90s. Its work in media research has helped its member companies develop credible business models and find solutions that trigger growth. I would like to thank the founding members, as MRUC India's success as an industry body, has a lot to do with its genesis. Leading lights like Roda Mehta, Brahm Vasudev, Mohini Bhullar, Arun Adhikari, I Venkat, and many more inspired the industry to unite for a common cause and put their full trust and faith in MRUC India's offerings. Over the years, many senior members of the industry have contributed immensely through their active participation.

During my tenure, MRUC India took some very decisive steps towards revamping the entire readership measurement space. It was a generational leap of sorts with latest CAPI technology being used, enhanced security measures at all levels, enhanced samples, etc. Around the same time, the new NCCS system was adopted by the industry which added to the challenges. Change is always tough for people anywhere and even though the IRS encountered challenges after challenges, it did weather the storms which eventually paved the way for an even better and robust sample size, methodology, cross checks, etc, thereby making the study even more future proof. I am glad to have a part of the journey while MRUC India itself was in a transitionary space. With stalwarts of the industry all pulling together, no challenge is unsurmountable and I am sure MRUC India will continue to go on from strength to strength in the future too.

MRUC India has played a pivotal role in media research over the years. While it has become synonymous with its flagship product IRS, MRUC India has been working behind the scenes to broad base it's offering to the industry and we hope to see a few new products in the near future. The soon to be released IRS has undergone a major revamp in terms of the research methodology, technology and the checks and balances that have been put in place. MRUC India has done a terrific job of bringing all stakeholders onto the same page for the new IRS. Providing consistently good quality media measurement to such a large and important medium like Print in a market as complex as ours is very difficult. But to MRUC India’s credit, it has always come out stronger when faced with challenges.

MRUC India is a pioneer body in Media Research and has done a splendid job in creating the world’s largest print readership survey. This survey has now become the currency over the years and is used by all stakeholders. I am honored to be associated with MRUC India which has made a huge improvement in making the Indian Readership Survey a robust study in the years to come.

My association with MRUC India commenced sometime in late 1993 when Mr. Brahm Vasudeva asked me to assist in drafting its Memorandum and Articles and processing its incorporation under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. The Council has been rendering incomparable service to advertisers, publishers, advertising agencies, broadcast and other media with its very well researched IRS and other reports. Credit for this goes to the acumen, vision and hard work of successive Chairmen, members of the Board, Chief Executive Officers and the research agencies. l am very happy to be associated with the Council from its pre-incorporation stage.

By the late 80’s the media scene in India had grown complex and clients and their ad agencies felt the need for robust data on all media to arrive at a quantifiable assessment of their media plans. This prompted the getting together of a few concerned ad agency heads along with major advertisers and media owners to form Media Monitoring Services a forerunner of MRUC India. At some point, I was elected as President of MMS. By mid- 90’s MRUC India had brought out its first media report – a voluminous exercise, largely spearheaded by a few dedicated individuals voluntarily, lavishing their time and energies on this. However, there were several problems – the reports needed space to be stored; they needed to be marketed professionally on a national scale all of which demanded that the activity acquire a formal corporate structure. In its 30th year, I had sold my ad agency Inter Publicity and was conducting training courses for ad professionals. I was requested by MRUC India to take over and formalize the activity and create a corporate structure, with proper premises, staffing, etc and appointed me with a grandiose tile of Director General! My 3-years as D.G were indeed rewarding as we marched on bringing out successive reports. My past experience as President of AAAI and the Press Guild stood me in good stead. I enjoyed working with our research agency and the Board. We travelled to the major metros making successful presentations to media users. In all this I was ably supported by Vasundhara Raghavan to whom I am very grateful.

The Indian Readership Survey has been the lifeline of media planning in India for more than two decades. From readership to other media habits to product consumption to durable ownership, IRS offers a wealth of data which forms the foundation of the media strategies for most brands in the country. Over the years, MRUC India has taken a lot of effort in continuously improving its flagship product, the IRS. For a complicated market like India, the importance of a neutral body like the MRUC India can never be stressed upon enough and MRUC India should be commended for playing this role without any kind of bias consistently and successfully.

I have been associated with MRUC India in different roles – as a media planner undertaking backcheck visits, as a volunteer for validating the products’ data, as a Techcom member, as Director General of the MRUC India and now as Techcom Chairman. One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is the unrelenting passion of members and volunteers to ensure neutral research outputs. MRUC India’s flagship research product – IRS, the only large-scale consumer survey, is very often the backbone of scientific tools for consumer targeting and media planning in the country. Happy to be associated!”

Media Research Users Council India has successfully measured the readership and viewership trends of a country as vast and complex as India. Run and managed by experts in publishing, advertising, and television industries, the unique concept of MRUC India is that it gets volunteers who dedicate their time, experience and energy to improve the product offering, which the whole industry can use. The number of cross checks done makes the data quite robust and reliable. Measurement of media consumption is a great business tool for advertisers and the data collected can also be of immense use by social scientists to understand how the Indian society is composed. I enjoyed my stint in working for MRUC India immensely and it was a great experience.

MRUC India has enjoyed a legacy where no other industry body in the country has produced the depth of media studies on a continuous basis for more than two decades. Led by stalwarts from the media, marketing, and the advertising fraternity, the Council has fulfilled its core objective of providing gold standard media research for the industry. As part of the MRUC India Board, I look forward to being part of the high power team to make media studies relevant as well as future-ready.

MRUC India has been the cornerstone of Media Research in India ever since it was formed in the early nineties. I have great respect for this not-for-profit body as it has relentlessly practiced transparency led by an unbiased approach. Its flagship study IRS is a true gem given its accuracy of data capture and the scale of operation. I'm hoping that the upcoming Report will fill the gap of research in the country and help its users find business solutions that trigger growth.

The constitution of MRUC India to provide credible, timely, unbiased, cost-effective and low-cost media research to the users as laid out by the founding members was a powerful statement of intent in an industry that badly needed it and attracted me to join the cause. As a not-for-profit body, MRUC India truly embodies the principles of staying detached while focusing on its objective. During my stint as the Chairman of MRUC India, the council had to face the challenge of ensuring data continuity, especially when the incumbent agency was changed. The vision and support of the fellow council members, both the users of media research and media owners straddling print, TV, radio and digital helped us fulfill our objective. Today, MRUC India plays a bigger role in addressing the industry's need for media research in a complex scenario where there are a plethora of media options to choose from.

The genesis of independent media research took place at an informal meeting in the early 90’s between Mohini Bhullar, Marketing Director (India Today), Brahm Vasudeva, CEO Hawkins Co., and myself, representing the 3 user arms of print audience measurement. There was agreement that the National Readership Survey needed to be published at regular intervals and not governed by research agency resources. I was charged with the task of taking this forward with INS and AAAI, both of which, unfortunately, refused any involvement. So, a meeting of 60 advertisers, publishers and advertising agency heads was hosted by Mr Vasudeva at the Oberoi Hotel with a record turnout of 47 persons attending the meeting. It was agreed that Audience Measurement had to be undertaken regularly given the rapid advances taking place in the media. In fact, publishers requested that the scope be enlarged beyond readership to other media as well for emerging audience consumption trends. The meeting gave a green signal to develop a proposal for review. A month later, a proposal presentation was made at a meeting hosted at the Bombay Gymkhana with attendance being primarily of publishers and advertising agencies. The first murmurs of dissonance was noted at this meeting, but the overall consensus was that this be advanced to fruition. And that is how the Media Research Users Council India came to be founded with Nargis Wadia as the first Director General and Brahm Vasudeva as its first Chairperson. The Board compared an equal mix of advertises, agencies and publishers and the Technical Committee was chaired by the very capable Arun Adhikari, Head of Market Research at Hindustan Lever, I Venkat of the Eenadu group and myself as members. And that was how the first Indian Readership Survey was conceived.

Over two decades ago, the Media Research User Council India was formed in order to generate information through unbiased research, that’s accurate, timely, consistent, economical, actionable and, above all, effective. To this end, the council has served the industry beyond all measures of expectation and continues to raise the bar with research that’s independent and focused. The council has constantly taken on the challenges of an ever-evolving industry and has continued to expand in its scale and scope to emerge as the world’s largest continuous media study. This has largely been made possible by the vision of its founders, the continued endeavor of its council members and the faith and support of media and brand custodians from across television, print, radio, outdoor and digital. I commend their steadfast vision and commitment to serve the media industry.

MRUC India was formed in to make periodic research available to its constituents comprising of all the stakeholders in the advertising industry – the media, the advertisers and advertising agencies. I headed MRUC India from Oct 2005 to March 2010 and it was one of the most rewarding stints of my advertising career. This period saw MRUC India bring in one of its kind Outdoor Media Research in 2009, The Indian Outdoor Survey, and the launch of the New Consumer Classification System (NCCS) replacing the old SEC, also in 2009. The Indian Listenership Track (Radio Research) was also another feather in MRUC India’s cap, launched in 2006. This was the period that MRUC India was maturing into truly an industry body catering to not just other media excluded from research earlier, but was completely in sync with the demands of the industry to enhance the classification of consumers itself as a core and fundamental step towards better research, advertising and marketing. It was also during this time that the idea of BARC was formed for TV research and MRUC India naturally made every effort to collaborate with BARC, an effort that unfortunately did not fructify then. Other media that was rising rapidly was the Mobile and Internet and here again MRUC India made efforts to measure it along with the IAMAI. This optimism, that MRUC India was maturing into truly an industry body was constrained with the usual limitations of conflicting aims and limited funding. The struggle for independence and neutrality at MRUC India was constant and not at all an easy task given the stakeholders. The core purpose of MRUC India was to be an independent body that would measure effectiveness of media and media vehicles for advertising across the length and breadth of India and provide research data that was timely and served the constituent’s need for reliable and accurate media research data. In the context of today’s competitive business environment where there are pressures on the bottom-line, it is inevitable that research driven advertising is likely to be compromised. As I see it, the challenges that MRUC India faced then and, I would venture to presume, also faces today is that of data ownership and data integrity, both of which have contrary pulls and which reflect eventually in the financial viability of the projects. And it is my contention that everyone loses. And that is precisely why there is a need for an independent industry body like MRUC India that not only holds up research to high standards but also rallies the industry around research data-driven advertising and marketing. In conclusion, while I had a steep learning curve at MRUC India and enjoyed the challenge of working for a non-profit body, for me, the highlight at MRUC India were the legal cases filed against it in the context of the IRS data because these gave me my second career viz. Law. I gained very good insights into the Legal profession having handled four cases filed by Publications against MRUC India. Apart from these cases, several aspects of running MRUC India were underpinned by law. And I am grateful to MRUC India for that.

MRUC India over the years has been at the forefront of leading cutting edge marketing research for the entire industry. Over the last 2 decades, the IRS has been used by all industry stakeholders from agencies, to the media industry, to marketers and even social researchers. The evolution of the NCCS has been a significant step in recent times. In a country as diverse as India, research and insight play a critical role in informed decision making and MRUC India’s pioneering work in helping people understand India is commendable.

Mr Brahm Vasudeva asked me, sometime in 1994, to help form the Readership Research Users Council, as it was first called. My agreement was immediate. The cause was clear – the need for continuous and unbiased research into the media habits of people, linked to what they consume. The founders were chasing an idea, doing something that was needed. We launched the MRUC India. As the person charged with Marketing the concept, I sent out more than 200 letters to media owners, advertisers and agency leaders. We collected over Rs 50 lakh as commitment from that one mailing initiative, in a month. The latent hunger for Media research was clearly there. We launched the IRS, very successfully. The MRUC India is a unique institution serving the entire industry. It has no partisan agenda. That is what makes it special. An idea whose time has come cannot be put down by anyone. MRUC India is testimony to this.

MRUC India has been at the pulse of media research in India from its earliest days, even when sophisticated measurement tools did not exist. Despite the proliferation of data providers today, MRUC India’s IRS remains the most authoritative single source database for planners. Audience estimates and media reach for many of our planning tools are linked to IRS. Working with MRUC India has been an enriching experience both as part of backend projects like data validation and as an end user, extracting insights for clients. MRUC India consistently sets the gold standard for rigor in media research. Credit should also go to the MRUC India team for always being available for guidance on using IRS and other products.

One of the most challenging things for the MRUC India Board and the technical team is to provide a currency, which is acceptable to all constituents of the media industry. I have no doubt on the integrity and sincerity of the MRUC India team that works with a purpose and a clear target to provide robust data to its members.

MRUC India, the brainchild of dedicated and purposeful industry stalwarts, is an organization tagged with credibility of the highest order. Holding huge reserves of quality research in its domain, puts the Council in an enviable position. There can never be a better-defined concept of non-profit organization as in MRUC India, which has positioned itself as the most reliable research provider. Wishing MRUC India best wishes for continued development to suit growing media trends and to meet industry’s requirements.

India’s Biggest and most Robust consumer understanding is back. I feel very assured as the currency has passed all the litmus tests of data quality internally and externally. Some hard decisions have been taken through the entire period irrespective of the cost implications. Greater levels of scrutiny, metamorphosis into a cross-platform insight tool, and the future readiness will make this extraordinary, if not revolutionary.