The Targeted Household Distribution scheme, launched yesterday, verifies the usage of geo-demographic segmentation tools such as TGI, Mosaic and Acorn and the level of distribution to households, to report on how likely it is any delivered media will reach target audiences.

Household distribution consultant Robert Marriott, formerly innovation director at Whistl and magazine publisher at the BBC, said he came up with the idea about a year ago and then approached ABC to see if it was interested in developing it.

“It’s an opportunity for print media brands to reach new audiences and for advertisers and agencies to have confidence in the quality of those audiences,” he said.

“There is continued circulation decline on the newsstand. What I see is the opportunity to take these trusted brands to create spin-offs and variations to reach out to new audiences that they haven’t reached before.”

Marriott, who now runs consultancy Sales Enablers, said that data collected by the likes of TGI and Mosaic was “quite sophisticated” and once a target audience is selected free print media can be successful.

Magazines given out at commuter stations in and around London such as Time Out, Shortlist and TV Guide, for example, are targeted to both area and a certain demographic. The new scheme would work in a similar way but by drilling down into geo-demographic data to target households. Marriott said it would be most useful for consumer media.

“It’s good news for print because it gives print publishers the ability to say we are delivering to a relevant audience and we are quite specifically targeting this audience. I’d like to think that during the course of 2016 a number of publishers will see the advantage,” he said.

This is the first ABC scheme that uses the organisation's expertise in process auditing from the digital side of the business, with traditional distribution audits.

 ABC group executive director of client services Jan Pitt said the scheme provided a “provable distribution” of the media, which “could be a publication, a newspaper, a catalogue, or a consumer magazine.  

“We were asked to produce a product and I think it’s going to prove an advantage to people. ABC is a very trusted industry-owned brand that people use.

“I think in a year’s time it will prove to be a great opportunity for print. The industry will have to decide how much they use it but we’ve had a great deal of interest in it so I suspect it will be successful.”

Managing director of Whistl Doordrop Media Mark Davies, called the move “a welcome initiative”.