Entrepreneurship, Technology Start-ups, & Small Business: MRI

University Reporter (formerly MediaMark Reporter or MRI+) is a database that contains information about purchasers of brands, product types and media consumers. The data is drawn from MRI's Survey of the American Consumer. Each year the survey is issued to 25,000 consumers in their homes. Interviewers observe and verify household and respondent characteristics and collect demographic and media usage data. The survey focuses on product and media data.

• Product: these focus on specific brands (such as Ford) or product type (like energy drinks). In the reports you can find information about who buys or uses the product/brand, including age, race, household income plus magazines, websites and cable channels they report watching.
• Media : focus on the media habits of specific demographic groups, including magazines, websites and cable channels watched.

The report below show the number of people who owned or leased a Toyota Prius at the time of the Spring 2017 survey was conducted.

• Detail- This is the consumer behavior we have selected.
  • In this example the Detail is the number of people who owned or leased a Prius at the time of the survey.
• Target- Demographic or media consumption category.
• Index- A calculated probability using 100 as a base. Targets with an index higher than 100 are more likely than the average person to exhibit the behavior in the detail. 
• Red Text - items in red are derived from a sample of 50 respondents or less and should not be considered reliable.

Within MediaMark Reporter reports, there are quintiles for magazines, newspaper, radio, etc use. This information is within the reports, so you might see:

• Internet Quintile I
• Internet Quintile II
• Internet Quintile III
• Internet Quintile IV
• Internet Quintile V

Those working with the survey data took all those who reported using the internet and divided them into 5 equal portions according to usage amount. Quintile I has the highest usage, Quintile V the lowest and the survey responses within each quintile are analyzed to get the report numbers for that group. So, if you wanted to compare media usage for consumers with an iphone, these numbers would let you see whether they are most likely to report high internet, magazine, newspaper, television or radio use.