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PR Services Frequently Asked
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How much do you record? What else does VMS monitor? How far back does your database go? How will I know when a new ad breaks? Can I automatically get all of my competitors' new ads? What are your digital capabilities? Can I access VMS data online? Can I rebroadcast or edit the ads I receive from VMS? How do I become a VMS client? A: VMS tapes every day in nearly 100 cities across the United States and Canada and can record in any other city upon request. We monitor network, cable, local and syndicated programs every day in order to keep our commercial library up-to-date. We also record radio in over 25 of the top markets in the US and record and monitor Spanish language TV and radio in select markets. Please see the Television and Radio pages for more information about when and where we record. A: VMS retrieves and libraries Print advertising from over 700 consumer magazines, trade magazines, and newspapers, and through our affiliation with Burrelle's, we can pull ads from over 17,000 publications. We also provide Internet banner ads from over 2,000 websites, and Out-of-Home ads from several markets. How far back does your database go? A: VMS's TV ad library dates back to the early 1960's. Radio ads go back to 1984. Print ads date back to 1990. Out-of-Home ads dating back to 1995. Internet banners date back to 1999. How will I know when a new ad breaks? A: Register your competitors with us and we'll start watching for their new ads immediately. When a new ad is seen that matches your criteria, your Account Service Representative will call you with the information. At that point, you can order the ad. Can I automatically get all of my competitors' new ads? A: Yes. It's called our Standing Order service and you can save money by using it. Let us help you clearly define what you want to see. Do you want only new ads...no revisions? Perhaps you only want new ads in certain markets. You are completely in control of the criteria set up to flag new ads in a standing order. As soon as a new ad is found by our system, an automatic order will be generated ensuring that the ad will arrive on your desk promptly. All ads sent on your standing order are billed at a reduced rate. You'll save about 15% off our regular rates for all standing order materials. What are your digital capabilities? A: All ads retrieved and libraried by VMS are immediately digitized, making it easy for us to deliver ads to you digitally in whatever format(s) you need. And we offer a broad array of online services which let you access your digital media whenever and however you want to. A: Yes. Adsearch gives you 24/7 access to search through over 1,000,000 ads from our database, including over 500,000 pieces of digital media across all five media types; You can set up anAdsite account which will store and organize all of the ads you purchase from VMS; Print Plus offers creative, occurrence and spending information from over 18,000 publications. For more information, click here. Can I rebroadcast or edit the ads I receive from VMS? A: No. Advertisements captured by VMS may be used for internal research, analysis or review only. Any other use may violate copyright law. A: Simply call the VMS office that serves your city and ask to speak with an Account Service Representative. They will be happy to set up an account and begin tracking for you. Contact your regional VMS Ad Services office now for more information. PR Services Frequently Asked Questions
What is monitoring?
Q: Why do people use a monitoring service? A: There are many different specific reasons why people choose to use a monitoring service. Basically, it all comes down to the need for information. Many PR professionals keep track of the news that their public relations efforts have generated. Corporations often monitor the news to gain information about how their company, products or services are being presented in the media. Many use monitoring services for competitive intelligence purposes or to keep track of public trends. Another important reason is to keep track of news coverage during a crisis, in order to gauge how the media are reporting on the crisis. Q: What kind of media do you monitor? A: VMS specializes in the broadcast media. Network television and radio such as ABC or NPR; Cable Networks like CNN; Nationally syndicated programs, for example, Entertainment Tonight; And newscasts prepared by local TV and radio stations throughout the country. We also maintain relationships with many foreign monitoring companies,and thus can provide clients with international States daily and non-daily newspapers, trade and consumer magazines. They also monitor the wire services the Internet, for electronic UseNets and bulletin boards. Foreign coverage includes publications from many different countries. Q: How broad is your coverage? A: We routinely record television and radio newscasts from 48 networks, 55 nationally syndicated programs and 536 local stations in 110 markets throughout the US. That's more than 65,000 broadcast hours of news each month. From these recordings we compile approximately 2 million broadcast news summaries monthly. Q: How are monitoring summaries created? How Quickly are they created? A: For Network
and in the top 50 markets (as ranked by Nielsen Media Research) we
actually have 2 methods. First there are human editors that
actually play back the off-air recordings within 2 hours after the
broadcast and create a summary of each news story. These
summaries contain all the key names and places mentioned in the
story, identify all significant visuals and include text designed to
reveal the essence of the story. We also capture the Closed
Caption Text that is fed by the networks and stations. The
Captioning arrives at VMS approximately 12 minutes after the words
are spoken on the air. We keep it in a way so that it can be
used to supplement the human monitoring. The closed caption
text is displayed to provide a brief view of "Keyword in Context",
and is limited to a maximum of 15 lines. These diverse
methodologies complement each other and provide the most accurate
monitoring in the shortest possible time. Q: Is human monitoring more accurate than closed caption? A: The short
answer is yes. In a study done about a year ago, the two
monitoring methods were compared to see which found more hits on an
array of control subjects. What was found is that taken alone,
human monitoring captures more than 80% of the hits, while closed
caption monitoring captured only about 65%. However, when the
two methods were used together, as VMS does, where one failed the
other excelled with the result that nothing was missed. Q: Which monitoring method is faster, human monitoring or closed caption? A: Since data from closed captioning requires no human intervention, it gets into the VMS search system the quickest. Then, when the human monitoring is completed (VMS normal deadline is within 2 hours after the newscast has ended) that monitoring goes into the system as well. Thus, VMS clients gain both the speed of closed caption monitoring with the accuracy of human monitoring. We do both methods in more markets (nearly three times as many) than any other monitoring service can offer. Q: How do I get notified when there is a hit of interest to me? A: Clients are
notified by phone about the most important hits. Most
clients also subscribe to one of a variety of "Monitoring Reports"
that we produce. These reports contain a compilation of
summaries or cc keyword-in-context for all the hits that have met
the clients profile. The unique thing about these reports, and
the thing that sets VMS apart from all its competitors, is that
after a machine search against the VMS monitoring and cc database is
completed, a human editor goes through each story, one-by-one to
eliminate any stories that do not meet the client's profile and
correct any spelling or other errors that are found in the closed
caption keyword in context entries. The benefit to our
customers is that they get a client-ready report from us that
doesn't waste their time. Q: Just what is a client profile, and how can I create one? A: client profile is the set of instructions that tells our computers and human report editors how to search our database of news stories to find those in which the client will have an interest. The profile can consist of an unlimited number of keywords [such as a company or product name or spokes person; Modifiers (usually tying the keyword(s) to a specific use, for example [include only stories about waste disposal] and exclusions [no stock stories, or no readers only]. Then for each profile there is a specific list of stations, programs, networks etc to search. The standard is all, but the profile can be limited in its search scope in any way the client desires. A well written profile assures that clients get what they want, and only what they want, so a lot of care is taken in setting them up. And, they can be changed as often as business needs dictate Q: What are the 10 most important questions I should ask a monitoring company? Q:How does VMS answer these questions? Q: Can you provide monitoring of Hispanic stations? A: VMS monitors Univision and Telemundo in several of the country's top markets so we report not only network coverage, but the local coverage as well. Monitoring Reports, tapes, transcripts and digital products are all available. Q: When can I expect daily delivery of my monitoring reports? A: The VMS report editing department is a 24 hour a day operation. Thus, most monitoring reports will be delivered in the early morning hours. Most clients prefer to have the reports waiting for them when they come to work. No problem there, we're already at work. Q: Can I get a digital or electronic version of a segment that was broadcast? A: VMS has digital options to meet every customer's needs. Whether you are looking for a streaming video that you can play from our server or yours, or a high quality file that you can download from our computer or get on a CD-ROM, or even a DVD. It doesn't matter what type of computer you have, or what operating system you use. We can produce digital files in virtually every available format. Q: What is the best way to archive my monitoring reports and/or news segments? A: VMS and its affiliate Burrelle's Information Services have joined together to create a web-based tool that not only allows you to archive all your monitoring reports and video, but, if you choose, all your Burrelle's press and Internet clippings as well. Far more than just a repository, this remarkable service called Insighttm allows you to search all your data, organize it just the way YOU want it, analyze it, produce ClipBooksTM, charts, graphs and reports. Q: How do I know which VMS office to contact for my needs? A: You can either check the VMSInfo.com office locator, or just call the office that seems most geographically suited to your needs. No matter what VMS office you call, you will be greeted by a trained professional that will take care of your immediate needs, and make sure that the office that can serve you best is brought into the loop so they can take care of you in the future. In short, we don't want to make it your problem call any office and we'll take it from there. Q: How can we contact you about a crisis situation at night or on weekends? A: Several VMS offices are staffed 24 X 7. So just call, any hour of the day. If the office you are calling does not happen to be one of those that are staffed in this way, a recording will instruct you on either how to leave a page for Crisis contact, or provide a referral number to an office with staff. That way, VMS will remove the monitoring burden from you immediately, and let you get on with doing what you do best...being professional PR counselors. Q: I need radio coverage that you don't seem to monitor. What can I do? A: The unfortunate fact about radio monitoring is that is the most expensive type of broadcast monitoring there is. Yet, most clients simply don't value it as highly as they do the monitoring of TV. For this reason Radio monitoring is quite limited. That doesn't mean you can't get what you need. VMS has many resources that we can call upon to find radio coverage we do not have ourselves. One VMS strength lies in knowing where to go when the tape doesn't seem to exist. We may not get what we want 100% of the time, but on the whole, our track record is the best in the industry. Q: I need to SEE what aired within minutes after it airs. Is that possible? A: VMS QuickView tm service provides near-real-time video retrieval from all major TV and cable networks and every significant station in the top 50 markets. That's well over 300 broadcast outlets. While particularly effective in crisis situations, VMS QuickView tm is also a cost-effective way to preview any news segments on a VMS Monitoring Report to assure that it is what you really want before you order a tape. Why do you record and monitor so much? A: Broadcast is the most perishable medium there is. You can obtain a copy of an article from the print media very quickly and with relative ease. Broadcast, on the other hand is far more elusive. Some broadcasters will provide you with copies of news segments, many will not. None will provide them the same day and none will notify you when you are mentioned in the news. We know from experience that VMS clients are interested in less than 1/2 of 1% of the news that airs. The problem is that they rarely know in advance which stories will interest them. So we have to record and monitor an enormous amount in order to be sure to capture the things clients really care about. Q: Can I show the segments I get from VMS on my website or in other public places? A: No, News segments produced by VMS may be used for internal research and review purposes only. Any editing, reproduction, rebroadcasting or public display such as on a web site is strictly prohibited and may violate copyright law. VMS customers are encouraged to seek their own legal counsel on matters of copyright. |
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2004 VMS, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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