Roy Morgan has today unveiled a suite of initiatives including a move into ‘big data’ with population profiling tool Helix Personas.

The research company has also released its media data set today – two weeks ahead of schedule – and is introducing monthly breaks as well as moving from a quarterly to monthly release of its media databases.

The company said the changes are all about speed to market, granularity of data, enhanced trending capabilities and greater use of all data sets.

Today’s event – held simultaneously in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – comes ahead of The Readership Work’s official launch of Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (EMMA) on Monday, which will also be released on a monthly basis.

Roy Morgan’s chief executive, Michele Levine, told B&T that The Readership Works’ was “obviously having huge difficulties getting the data right”. Yesterday News Corp Australia announced it would not renew its Roy Morgan readership subscription in favour of EMMA.

“They have obviously had huge difficulties getting the data right, we now hear that they are trying to do some kind of calibration against circulation,” Levine said.

“I think everybody is going to be looking to see what on earth it is, but I think it’s just a bit of noise.”

Of the Roy Morgan initiatives announced today, the market is most eagerly anticipating the launch of Helix Personas next month, according to Levine.

Helix is a combination of ABS Data, Roy Morgan Single Source, 3^rd party transactional and other data sets. It features 56 psychographic behavioural based personas which are rolled up into seven communities Australia wide.

It will be available online and can be appended to an agency’s data sets. Updated monthly, Helix Personas will also provide a geospatial layer to its insights.

Roy Morgan still believes average readership over 12 months is the best estimate for how print, particularly magazines, will perform in the future. “But the competitive set has changed….so average reach over 12 months is just not as useful,” Levine said.

“The whole digital space has meant that everybody wants to look at things more quickly and with a degree of recency.

“If the print media are not in that same frame they just won’t be looked at.”

Overall the changes are designed to give agencies and clients a clearer view into the performance of a medium.

“We also expect agencies and marketers to better understand campaign performance and consumer behaviour and be better able to make more informed strategic decisions based on the most recent data.”