VIDEOS & PRESENTATIONS

 

Day 1 – Sept 21 | Day 2 – Sept 22 | Day 3 – Sept 23

 

11:00 – 11:05am
WELCOME – Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

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11:05 – 11:20am – INTERVIEW
The Future of Audience Measurement
David Kenny – CEO and CDO, Nielsen
Moderator: Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

Summary:
The major behavioral change that COVID-19 brought to bear is, in one word, streaming, and it is here to stay, according to Nielsen’s CEO and CDO, David Kenny in his interview with Scott McDonald, CEO and President of ARF. While some demographics will revert to their pre-COVID habits, the 55+ audience, which more than doubled on both video and audio, will likely not go back. What happens next as the weather gets colder and viewers deal with the economic implications of the pandemic will be complicated by the upcoming census and the continuing fragmentation of audiences that challenge accurate measurement.

• There has been a 115% increase in advertising across the VOD and AVOD landscape, and Nielsen forecasts 210 million OTT subscribers by 2024.
• Nielsen maintains that measuring reach and frequency with deduplication is still essential, especially considering the acceleration of new platforms (15) launched in the last two years.
• There is no comprehensive best metric for measurement in this fragmented environment; it is not as simple as an impression.
• Evolution of measurement has to connect business outcomes to reach and frequency, including elements of comparability and resiliency, in order to raise the standards to favor audience and content quality.
• Businesses should step up “loudly” in support of accuracy in response to census issues. The industry has to come together with a universal proposal for validation of population numbers and diversity.
• Regarding the use of panels in the big data era, Nielsen is doubling down on panel investments and improving how it cleanses and corrects data from its partners to triangulate an effective measurement overall.

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11:20 – 11:40am – PRESENTATION
Connected Cars Improve a Brand’s Radio Strategy
Saejin Park – Director, Global Digital Transformation, General Motors
Aaron Wolf – Data Scientist, General Motors
Sasha Wolfe – Head of Media, Taco Bell

Summary:
Connected cars provide a new, unique data source that can combine behavioral data and radio exposure in a car, with real time location analytics, to provide better attribution analysis. Saejin Park, Director of Global Digital Transformation, and Aaron Wolf, Senior Data Scientist, both from General Motors, and Sasha Wolfe, Head of Media at Taco Bell, shared how they leveraged connected car data to better measure radio effectiveness and optimize radio buys.

• Taco Bell and GM pioneered a way to measure radio’s effectiveness using connected cars. In this pilot study, GM and Taco Bell were able to leverage highly precise location data, radio listening data, demographics, along with radio ad logs and Taco Bell’s restaurant visit data to uncover never-seen-before insights that helped optimize Taco Bell’s radio buys.
• Measuring effectiveness combined with costs enabled optimization. Controlling for frequency enabled the understanding of the unit type mix. Simulation proved the effectiveness of Taco Bell’s radio ads.
• Among the pilot study’s findings:
• Network-only ad unit type was the most effective in driving restaurant visits.
• Voiced (personality sponsorships) and NWT (News/Weather/Traffic) ad units together generate synergies when combined.
• Mid-day recorded the highest driving activity; light listeners preferred XM.
• The caveat: These results are directional and based on a single, one market (Columbus, OH), two-month study. While the team was very encouraged by the results of this pilot, there’s opportunity to enrich insights by analyzing the impact of creatives on store visitation, scaling the scope for a more comprehensive view of radio ad’s effectiveness, and executing similar research for competitive analytics.

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11:40am – 12:00pm – PANEL
Attribution in a Post-Cookie World
Travis Clinger – VP Global Strategy and Partnerships, LiveRamp
Marty Kihn – SVP Product Strategy, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce
Marc Vermut – VP, Advisory Services, Neustar
Moderator: Angelina Eng – VP, Measurement & Attribution, IAB & IAB Tech Lab

Summary:
In a world where there are no cookies many questions arise about how attribution will work in the future. In this discussion moderated by Angelina Eng of IAB & IAB Tech Lab, panelists Travis Clinger of LiveRamp, Marty Kihn of Salesforce, and Marc Vermut of Neustar, bring clarity to the issues surrounding the future of measurement in a cookie-less world.

• As the third-party cookie is on a death watch, the challenges are clear as attribution has traditionally relied on third-party browser cookies and mobile ad IDs. Marty explained that MTA is at the user-level so it requires collecting user data from log files about individuals pseudonymously, but also track the same individual across different sites.
• However, all is not lost, and this could be an opportunity for a more efficient measurement solution. Travis pointed out that 40% of the internet is already unmeasurable as third-party cookies have not been available on Safari and Firefox. He sees authenticating people-based identity as a key part of the solution, which the large social platforms are doing. This would ensure that “every impression that is addressable is also measurable.”
• “The future is more complicated, but may be more accurate,” according to Marty. He forecasts that the future solution is likely to be a combination of deterministic, probabilistic, with some mix modeling, some testing, and some [data] clean rooms. Since econometrics or mix modeling had to be done to fill in the gaps from walled gardens, which has existed for years, as well as offline, marketers and agencies are equipped to do this kind of analytics, so it’s just a question of where the data sources are.
• Identify providers, measurement providers, as well as advertisers are going to need to have much more direct relationships with the publishers and the platforms so that they can have access to log files directly whether it’s in a clean room or leveraging a flock, according to Marc.
• Additional forecasts:
  • A universal user ID across platforms that is mandated is unlikely, but there will be more likely wide adoption of IDs used across publishers (e.g., Trade Desk). However, you will still have a lot of blind spots that require econometrics or mix modeling to fill in the gaps. (Marty Kihn, Salesforce)
  • People-based marketing isn’t going away as social platforms are unaffected by cookie deprecation and are 100% addressable. But in the open internet, publishers need a level playing field, and they need to have some level of authentication. Contextual will help fill in the gaps but we can’t rely completely on contextual. (Travis Clinger, LiveRamp)
  • There will be movement to quality on the open website (as we know consumers are willing be identified and tracked when they are getting something of value), and marketers will start shifting their dollars to inventory that’s addressable, trackable, and measurable. (Marc Vermut, Neustar)

Beyond Demographics and Generation: Life Transitions and Connection
Alexa Raven – VP, Consumer Insights, Warner Bros. Media Research & Insights
Lisa Kim – VP, Portfolio Research, WarnerMedia Ad Sales Research

Summary:
Connecting with consumers today goes beyond the traditional marketing approach founded on people’s customary stages of life. Changes in these life stages have significantly upended consumer behavior and reset priorities, even before the pandemic. In a deep dive to establish new patterns of behavior in this unprecedented time of change, Warner Media’s research identified several key commonalities that characterized a new model for reaching consumers during the pandemic, and after.

• Nostalgia and “super serving” fans drove Warner Media’s strategy to relate to consumers in new ways. Nostalgia fosters positive emotions and actions by reducing stress, creating optimism about the future and encouraging spending money. For instance, the DC Fandome virtual event prioritized fans and resulted in 22 million views across 21 countries.
• Consumers are looking for support and inspiration: 85% look to brands to help solve their problems; 80% look to brands to solve societal problems;73% look to brands to enrich their lives.
• When developing brand engagement strategies:
  • Be empathetic: consider the moment in time a consumer is living through.
  • Identify how consumers are attempting to meet their needs through identity, self-care and social connection.
  • Leverage nostalgia in messaging and products.
  • Stay active.

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The Impact of TV Ad Exposure
Lindsey Woodland – VP, Analytics, 605

Summary:
Lindsey Woodland, VP of Analytics at 605, discussed how most brands and marketers struggle to understand the contributing factors to the success or failure of their linear TV campaigns. A behavioral analysis of strategic targets helped a major programmer understand which audiences were most influenced by a tune-in campaign for a popular linear TV Season 3 program premiere.

• Ads caused a lift among households which watched the previous season, attracted large tune-in rates among competitive show viewers (a very coveted subgroup) to the premiere, and were also able to complete the difficult task of drawing in new viewers to the third season.
• Additionally, the research determined that households exposed to ads on both network and off-network yielded the greatest lift.
• Through this research, 605 helped the programmer identify which audiences were most influenced by the promo campaign and apply these insights to create more effective and efficient promo campaigns for future optimization.

 

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TV Advertising During a Pandemic
Phillip Lomax – SVP Business Development, MediaScience
Amy Rask, Ph.D. – Chief Operating Officer MediaScience
Daniel Bulgrin – Lab Director MediaScience

Summary:
MediaScience investigated the context effects of TV advertising during the current pandemic. They explored three questions: Is there significant difference in brand impact between the news environment (focused on COVID-19) and regular prime time programming; How do viewers respond to ads where the message is tailored to COVID-19; Is there evidence that the COVID-19 outbreak is causing a brand safety issue?

• Advertising during a pandemic is safe. However, we need to “show,” not just “tell” viewers our message, and do so in the right environment.
• Context matters. The potential “lean forward” environment of news may be a better fit for informational messaging.
• Testing is crucial. It may seem like an ad wouldn’t perform well in the news during the height of the pandemic; however, testing showed otherwise. The fundamentals of creating an engaging ad will still apply.

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Ad Effectiveness: Maximizing Bang/Buck

12:20 – 12:35 – And Now For a (Not So Brief) Message From Our Sponsors
Priscilla Aydin – Group Director, Primary Research, Omnicom Media Group
Jonathan Stringfield – VP & Global Head of Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights, Activision Blizzard

Summary:
Activision Blizzard and Omnicom came together to study ad receptivity, specifically as it applied to integrating longer ads in games played on mobile devices. Although there is a common consensus that short ads are more effective on mobile, Jonathan Stringfield of Activision Blizzard wanted to dispel this assumption by comparing advertiser experience and player experience. Working with Priscilla Aydin of Omnicom to provide cross-category advertiser perspectives, Ipsos designed and hosted a survey about an ad campaign within Candy Crush that served various length cuts of the same creative.

• Impact on advertisers: All key measures found that 30 second ads scored significantly higher than 6 second ads, except in Product Intent and Advocacy.
• Impact on User Experience: Less clear but game advocacy did not change and remained flat. Ad length also saw insignificant effects on video completion rate.
• A supplementary gyroscopic study that measured device orientation to rule out inattention indicated that viewers were still looking at the screen.
• Less is not always more: Longer ads are better at driving brand loyalty because of their storytelling capabilities.
• The device is not the determining factor—it is context. The content that precedes (and follows) an ad, and the way ads are introduced into the content experience, are key in how a consumer will receive a brand’s message.
• Fielded well before the pandemic, the study findings could differ at a more intense level as behavioral use of apps in mobile has greatly increased during the pandemic.

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12:35 – 12:50pm – Producing Effective Ad Curation
Beth Egan – Associate Professor, Advertising, Syracuse University

Summary:
As live linear television viewing returns to pre-pandemic levels, the increase in ad avoidance behavior aligns with the growth in streaming services, making it more convenient and easier than ever. For advertisers, machine learning models and algorithms promise the ability to predict the best ad attributes for successful placement, and Beth Egan of Syracuse University presented findings from a pre-COVID programmatic study that outlined the predictors of ad retention.

• This study identified six best predictors for ad retention: ad duration; originality; program duration; number of ads in a pod; number of pods in program; ad pod placement.
• Machine learning analysis confirmed what we already knew – that the first and last ad in the pod delivered higher ratings.
• How the audience engages with the program may also impact their sticking with the ad breaks.
• Ad clutter does have an impact and the model can potentially be used to predict the level of ad retention at various levels of clutter.

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1:00 – 1:15pm – Optimizing Programmatic Media Campaigns
Chris Hopkins – Senior Partner & Senior Director of Analytics, GroupM

Summary:
Translating data from insights into action is the focus of this financial case study from Group M’s Chris Hopkins. Using performance analytics to “close the loop” where there was insufficient understanding of customer journeys, as well as which users were high value, and when they were close to converting, Hopkins highlighted the opportunities that capture new customers with careful data engineering and a user-level scoring approach.

• Implementing user-level scoring instead of a traditional bidding strategy, the model effectively predicted convertors and drove greater efficiency.
• The application of probabilities and specific bids drove the fastest path to conversion.
• Based on these results, the process was scaled out and automated to drive efficiency for mid/lower funnel activity and scheduled to run on a weekly basis.

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Ad Effectiveness: Maximizing Bang/Buck – Moderated Session

Summary:
Beth Rockwood moderated this group discussion and followed up on key points presented in the Ad Effectiveness: Maximizing Bang/Buck track sessions held on Monday September 21, 2020.

• Digging deeper to close the loop between data and insights does take time. A key element to adapting clients’ campaigns is low-risk testing within the scope of the project as it is happening, according to Chris Hopkins at GroupM. [Presentation: Optimizing Programmatic Media Campaigns]
  • Quality results are still possible with third-party data, though with a different incremental value. But industry cooperation is needed to future-proof solutions when cookies fade away.
• One size does not fit all as it applies to ad length, especially in the mobile gaming universe, where the assumption has been that the shorter the ad, the better. Jonathan Stringfield at Activision argues that recognition of an ad in five seconds is not enough to achieve a quality experience for either user or advertiser. Effective strategies vary and advertisers should not rule out longer ads for their mobile campaigns. [Presentation: And Now For a (Not So Brief) Message From Our Sponsors]
  • Where comparing ad length with frequency, ongoing research finds that higher frequencies bring lower returns but it depends on what you want to achieve, says Stringfield. Challenge the platform you are working with to find the best placement for an information-filled/longer ad.
• It was important to involve clients across categories, including Finance, CPG, Entertainment, etc., in the ad length study to achieve category agnostic results, explained Priscilla Aydin at Omnicom. [Presentation: And Now For a (Not So Brief) Message From Our Sponsors]
• For Beth Egan’s cross-discipline research at Syracuse University, it was important to fill the gaps of knowledge—and language—between the data scientists and advertising strategists in order to discern the basic elements that led to smarter decision making. [Presentation: Predicting Effective Ad Curation]
  • Advertisers can take advantage of the study’s learnings by modeling business scenarios as they look to remove pods.

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Identity Mapping & Privacy: Linking Subjects, Sources and Consent

 

12:20 – 12:35pm – Appending and Enhancement of First-Party Audience Data
Courtney Lehecka – Associate Manager Audience Strategy & Activation, NA Media & Data, PepsiCo
Joe Conte – Principal, IRI Media Center of Excellence

Summary:
One of the challenges for consumer product companies is that they often have limited first-party data. Courtney Lehecka of PepsiCo and Joe Conte of IRI shared how their two companies collaborated to enhance PepsiCo’s available first-party data, in order to help drive greater and deeper audience insights and better performance in campaigns.

• To holistically understand their target audiences, agnostic of platforms, PepsiCo uses an internal consumer data platform, powered by first and third-party data to create people-based marketing.
• Examples of PepsiCo’s first-party data include newsletters, subscriptions, coupon clippings, sweepstakes, as well as DSD store sales data.
• These data can be augmented by product and retail propensity from IRI to understand where these consumers are, where they can be reached with marketing, as well as other attributes (e.g., lifestyle, interests and hobbies, demographic, HH size and make-up).
• When IRI creates audiences, they start by identifying the HHs that best suit the brands’ growth targets. IRI creates propensity models that identify the most discriminating attributes, primarily demographic, that are predictors of purchase. This model is then used to scale all 126 million households in the U.S. This audience is then pushed over to PepsiCo’s consumer data platform for ingestion.
• These audience insights are being incorporated across PepsiCo’s marketing strategy, including media strategy, identifying incremental demand, competitive intelligence, personalization, and first-party data integration.
• The activation capability has proven effectiveness. In 2019, they ran a few closed loop, head to head test, and saw great results.

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12:35 – 12:50pm – Can Blockchain Provide a New Approach for Addressing Privacy?
Paul Neto – Co-Founder & CMO, Measure Protocol

Summary:
In this presentation, Paul Neto of Measure Protocol, discussed the role of Blockchain in building trust, transparency, privacy, and ultimately driving greater data quality and research participation.

• Data quality is a function of trust, and trust comes from positive experiences, privacy, transparency, accountability, as well as fair compensation. Trust is solely needed in the industry, as according to the GRBN Global Trust Survey 2020, only 26% trust market research companies.
• Privacy concerns impact research participation. Research by Measure Protocol found that 1 in 2 are concerned about their privacy when completing an online survey; 60% would share more data if they felt their privacy was protected; nearly a third would decline participating in research if they didn’t have sufficient level of trust with the survey provider.
• Blockchain can help build data sovereignty, privacy, and transparency at the same time. Blockchain is not a place to store user data, but to store transactions. It allows for decentralizing data and thus, limiting data liability.
• As you increase trust, you are increasing the willingness to share new types of data. Measure Protocol is seeing this across their network with 61% willing to share their Amazon order history; 51% willing to share their Chrome’s browsing activity; 72% willing to share their Netflix watch history.

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1:00 – 1:15pm – Consumer Take on Data & Ad Personalization
Lisa Kimura – Project Manager / Research Analyst, Intelligence Solutions & Strategy, Magna Global
Cara Pantano – Sr. Manager, Thought Leadership, Sales Insights, Verizon Media

Summary:
To uncover the public’s POV on the use of personalized ads and data privacy, Magna Global, IPG Media Lab, and Verizon Media conducted two studies: a mobile ad test and an online survey. Lisa Kimura of Magna and Cara Pantano of Verizon Media presented these study findings on consumer receptivity to ad personalization, understanding of data privacy, and the implications for advertisers.

• The mobile study found that 88% are aware of personalized ads and see the benefits (“utility,” “relevance,” “interesting”), and find the common forms of data used to create personalized ads to be acceptable (e.g., past purchase history, demos, search history).
• In fact, acceptability of these data sources for personalized ads has increased over the past few years, but there is a limit. In general, consumers have a significantly lower acceptance of more “intimate” data being used to serve personalized ads (e.g., conversations with voice-assisted smart devices, personal financial data, medical records, personal emails, private conversations).
• However, the personalized ad needs to relevant: a non-personalized ad is better than a personalized ad that isn’t relevant.
• In terms of data privacy, in general, consumers are concerned but mostly about identity theft, data security. They were least worried about customized ads. In addition, nine in ten are willing to exchange data in exchange for services or benefits except for “intimate” data (e.g., personal financial data, medical records, private conversations, personal emails).
• Implications for advertisers: People want ad personalization, and this overrides privacy concerns (but brands need to get it right); Data concerns are real so be transparent to drive trust as well as educate and empower your consumers to protect their data.

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Identity Mapping & Privacy: Linking Subjects, Sources and Consent – Moderated Sessions

Joe Conte – Principal, IRI Media Center of Excellence
Lisa Kimura – Project Manager / Research Analyst, Intelligence Solutions & Strategy, Magna Global
Courtney Lehecka – Associate Manager Audience Strategy & Activation, NA Media & Data, PepsiCo
Paul Neto – Co-Founder & CMO, Measure Protocol
Cara Pantano – Sr. Manager, Thought Leadership, Sales Insights, Verizon Media
Moderator: Seth Duncan – Leader, Analytics & Insights, W2O

Summary:
Seth Duncan of W2O moderated this group discussion and followed up on key points presented in the Identity Mapping & Privacy track sessions held on Monday September 21, 2020.

• Marketers have an abundance of data but this comes with greater responsibility, according to Seth’s take on the common theme of the track. Help educate consumers on how their data is being used, stored, and how to opt-out. There needs to be more push for consumers to have more control over their data.
• On how much is too far in personalization, Joe Conte of IRI noted that this was a moving target, and it’s up to the consumer to decide, but a helpful guiding principle is “always use the data for good.” Paul Neto of Measure Protocol observed that a lack of clarity on where the data is coming from leads to distrust, and it can quickly turn from beneficial to creepy. Lisa Kimura of Magna Global also pointed out that brands need to understand the sensitivities particular to their vertical.
• “Trust is built by having consistency over time,” according to Paul. He noted that as you build trust with individuals, new opportunities start to open up. In terms of access to data, he found that you may be surprised if you just ask the consumer.
• On why and when consumers are willing to exchange data for services and benefits, Cara Pantano of Verizon Media observed that majority of people are willing to share their health data for the greater good. Paul also noted that beyond compensation, consumers also want a sense of community. Joe pointed out that you need to give consumers the choice to turn off and on different types of data.

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Targeting: Advances in Targeting

12:20 – 12:35pm – Maximizing Digital Media Efficiency
Megan Lau – Group Research Manager, Microsoft

Summary:
Megan Lau, Group Research Manager at Microsoft, demonstrated how a new strategy using machine learning-based targeting and modeling demonstrated that increasing marketing frequency to lower propensity buyers provided a larger pool of potential buyers. Customers with high propensity scores will buy even without frequent ad exposures.

• Microsoft’s goal was to maximize efficiency by creating a solution to bring independent data sources on customers together, rather than their previous siloed model where the focus was on the product purchased.
• Microsoft linked model outputs to paid media for targeting insights: product conversion rates are based on unexposed (organic conversion rate) vs. exposed data (paid media); the reach and frequency of the product campaign were examined by the propensity to purchase bands.
• Results showed that Microsoft is already reaching high propensity users. The company needs to consider consumers in the lower propensity bands, where the volume is greater and media campaigns may be more impactful. These customers represent a huge opportunity, especially when exposed to a greater ad frequency. Additionally, this solution can yield significant cost savings.

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12:35 – 12:50pm – Hacking the Funnel
Miguel Hernández – Marketing Effectiveness Analytics/LATAM, Nielsen
Felipe Prandini da Silveira – Marketing Science Partner, Facebook

Summary:
Facebook found that using “test and learn” has a potential to increase 94% in efficiency. Miguel Hernández of Nielsen, and Felipe Prandini da Silveira of Facebook, illustrate the benefits of this approach through this case study, which discusses how targeting for high growth potential in a signal-less environment enabled Heineken, Brazil to increase sales and market share.

• Heineken, Brazil needed to explore alternatives to people-based signals. The objective was to use non-people based signals to increase sales in supermarkets, one of its main channels.
• Test and control ads were geo-located around the stores, with customized calls to action for each retailer.
• Sales results lift between the control and the test groups showed that the test ads had lifted sales: +16%, market share: 3.5 pp, ROAS: U$3.63
• Heineken Brazil learned that “thinking outside the bottle” yielded better results.

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1:00 – 1:15pm – Client Centric Marketing Drives Bottom Line
Thomas Boos – Audience Analytics Lead, IBM Corporation
Yvonne Li – Lead Data Scientist, IBM Corporation

Summary:
Marketing is multi-dimensional and interactions with multiple employees within an organization may occur before the B2B sale is finalized. Thomas Boos and Yvonne Li of IBM presented a case study focused on Vodaphone’s customer, PayPal, to illustrate how accounts can be segmented by different attributes for targeting in order increase conversion potential and optimize marketing resource allocation.

• IBM analyzed PayPal’s interactions at an individual level to see which employee roles are critical to moving the opportunity along the marketing funnel. (Interactions with a data analyst, a developer, business operations management, marketing, sales and a chief sales officer occurred before the purchase was finalized.)
• The optimal client journey was traced through the purchase stages from early stage (engagement) through middle stage (nurture) to late stage (conversion).
• Analysis using Watson can provide insights into what a particular client is looking for. For example, what keywords are they searching on? What types of resources are they opening?
• The account list can be expanded using surge data to find other prospective companies interested in the same keywords by topics, by countries and by industries.
  • Summary of findings:
  • Engage organically with hands-on product trials and deep dive sessions.
  • Broaden scope nurturing through events and comparative insights.
  • Close sales with products trials to deepen the experience.

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Targeting: Advances in Targeting – Moderated Sessions
Thomas Boos – Audience Analytics Lead, IBM Corporation
Miguel Hernández – Marketing Effectiveness Analytics/LATAM, Nielsen
Megan Lau – Group Research Manager, Microsoft
Yvonne Li – Lead Data Scientist, IBM Corporation
Felipe Prandini da Silveira –Marketing Science Partner, Facebook
Moderator: Cole Strain – Head of Measurement Solutions, Pinterest

Summary:
Cole Strain, Head of Measurement Solutions at Pinterest, recapped the presentations from the track: Advances in Targeting and discussed highlights with the authors of the winning papers and solutions.

• The overall theme was how result-centric measurement is critical to finding the right audiences and providing an accurate attribution analysis.
• Measurement is even more important in light of COVID-19.
• Propensity to buy and incrementality are related.

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1:45 – 2:00pm – PRESENTATION & INTERVIEW
Why Driving a Strong Brand Still Matters
Abby Mehta – SVP, Marketing Analytics & Insights Executive, Bank of America

Summary:
Inspired by last year’s ARF AXS presentation by Les Binet, Abby Mehta, SVP of Marketing Insights & Media at Bank of America, took that knowledge and applied it internally to determine the value of Bank of America’s brand. Assessing the relationship between brand and business led Mehta and her team to employ unconventional methodology by gathering information at the individual customer level while tracking business outcomes. They found that a strong brand still matters; allowing, in these unsettled times, the opportunity to step up and deepen their relationships with their consumers.

• Consumers turn to institutions for guidance in challenging economic and societal environments and strong brands can respond by proving their value to them.
• Understanding that taking action on issues is important to their employees, clients and communities, Bank of America showcased their value in a video campaign that told a complete story.
• Stronger brand perceptions resulted in higher business outcomes, making a case for investing in brand marketing. Previously, attrition rates had once been twice as high.

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2:00 – 2:30pm – KEYNOTE PRESENTATION & INTERVIEW
Collecting Data During a Global Pandemic
Dr. Ron Jarmin – Deputy Director and COO, U.S. Census Bureau

Summary:
As the U.S. Census Bureau commenced its constitutionally mandated once-a-decade population count, The World Health Organization declared a global pandemic on March 11. In this keynote presentation, Dr. Ron Jarmin, Deputy Director and COO of the U.S. Census Bureau, explained how the Bureau leadership had to think outside the box, and delay and extend certain 2020 Census operations. The Census Bureau modified its Integrated Partnership and Communications Program for Census 2020, as well as its operations to collect the data. Additionally, the Bureau released new weekly data products, Household Pulse Survey and Business Pulse Survey, and online COVID-19 demographic and economic resources. The Bureau continued to serve the data user community during this unprecedented time.

• Conducting the 2020 Census during COVID-19 required a major pivot in terms of changing and updating the campaign to reflect the new reality. Paid media was very important to the Census Bureau’s $700 million Integrated Partnership and Communications Program. The challenges have been considerable, but Jarmin credited Y&R’s team and contractors for developing the new communications program.
• Current status of the Census results:
  • 95% of the nation has been counted in the 2020 Census.
  • 1% responded on their own online, by phone, or by mail.
  • Wildfires and hurricanes have slowed field work in some locations.
  • New technologies have been crucial in this environment such as online self-responses and enumerators utilizing iPhones.
• Jarmin expects the Census results to be accurate. This accuracy is essential to the business community. It serves as a truth set for demographic research, planning by marketers, and other critical research.
  • High response rates are an early KPI.
  • A demographic analysis will be undertaken to see that trending is accurate.
  • Post-enumeration survey will be conducted.
  • The concept of differential privacy was discussed by Ron and Scott McDonald, CEO and President of ARF. The Census Bureau needs to balance utility and privacy of data. Jarmin explained that there is no scientific guidance related to achieving this balance. However, adding more aggregate levels of data results in more privacy and additional accuracy.

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2:35 – 2:55pm – THE LAST WORD
Andy Fisher – Head of Merkury Advanced TV, Merkle
Molly Poppie – SVP, Data Science, Nielsen
Shyam Venugopal – VP, Global Media and Consumer Data, PepsiCo, Inc
Moderator: Beth Egan – Associate Professor, Advertising, Syracuse University

Summary:
Beth Egan, Associate Professor of Advertising at Syracuse University, moderated this panel discussion to discuss key takeaways from the first day of the conference. Below are edited highlights from the conversation.

• All of us are in a similar boat – both from a research and industry perspective, according to Shyam Venugopal, VP of Global Media and Consumer Data at PepsiCo, Inc. He noted that we are all trying to get more crisp in our audience understanding and measurement. It’s about how you translate your audience strategy across the entire value chain.
• There is more discussion about our relationship with the consumer in data collection. Molly Poppie, SVP of Data Science at Nielsen, observed that compared to previous years, there was much more focus on the consumer: everything from how we’re collecting the census data during the pandemic to how differential privacy is changing our relationship with consumers in a cookie-less world, as well as how consumers feel about data collection, and how we are using the data in a responsible way.
• One of the biggest challenges for the industry remains handling attribution across walled gardens and across different platforms. Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV at Merkle, was struck by how often the sessions used “people-based marketing,” but he noted that even with people-based, you can handle a lot of the cross-platform well, but when you hit the walled gardens, it’s still a big challenge. Molly noticed that the presentations on deep hyper-segmentation and targeting did not address how to bring this to scale, across the walled gardens and all channels. She considers this an exciting space to explore. Shyam also wanted to better understand how companies were focusing their consumer data strategy internally to better handle the attribution challenge.

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2:55 – 3:00pm – CLOSING REMARKS
Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

10:00 – 11:00am
ARF SOCIAL MEASUREMENT COUNCIL WORKSHOP
Danti Chen – Head of Applied Data Science & Insights, SVP, Global Intelligence, Weber Shandwick
Jon Farb – Chief Product Officer, ListenFirst
Jon Lorenzini – Marketing Science Manager, Snap
Amy Laine – Principal Market Analyst, Social Insights Program Team Lead, IBM; Co-Chair, Social Council
Danny Landau – Senior Director, Research and Analytics, Talkwalker
Shelley Murphy – VP, Media Center of Excellence, IRI
Andrew Reid – President, New York Venture Capital Association; Co-Chair, Social Council

Summary:
The ARF Social Council, consisting of ARF members with experience and interest in the social media measurement realm, is preparing a social media measurement field guide for members entering the social media field and those seeking to understand new social media measurement options. The Council hosted this workshop to introduce conference attendees to the core concepts of the field guide and invite discussion from attendees on the key issues they face and the key questions they have about social media measurement.

The workshop began with an overview of the field guide and the research that the Council had undertaken. Workshop attendees were then divided into three breakout rooms – one on Paid, Owned, and Earned social media measurement; one on influencer selection and measurement; and one on the impact of social media from brand reputation to lower funnel impact. Below are key takeaways from the discussions.

• The key types of social metrics identified by the group are those that measure size and scale (e.g., fans/followers), engagement (e.g., shares), social listening (e.g., sentiment), ad effectiveness (as with other types of paid advertising), actions (as with other types of digital advertising), and video-specific metrics (e.g., view completion rates).
• There are also metrics that are specific to paid social (similar to other digital advertising), owned (e.g., likes, shares), and earned (comments/replies). The lines between paid, owned, and earned can be blurry and can depend on categories and campaigns.
• Measurement of influencers involves another set of metrics, such as fit between the influencer in the brand and the size of the influencer’s following.
• There are three major approaches to selecting influencers – data driven (e.g., size of following and level of influence of the followers), audience-centric (i.e., audience targeting), and goal-oriented (in which the goals drive the success metrics).

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11:00 – 11:05am
WELCOME – Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

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11:05 – 11:20am – KEYNOTE & INTERVIEW
The Future of TV is NOW: Implementing an Audience-First Approach
Nicolle Pangis – CEO, Ampersand
Moderator: Jane Clarke – CEO, Managing Director, CIMM

Summary:
Jane Clarke, CEO and Managing Director of CIMM, moderated a discussion with Nicolle Pangis, CEO of Ampersand, about the need for advertisers to leverage technology to maximize TV’s brand-building power. Applying an audience-first strategy to a TV buy and moving beyond age and gender are the first steps to finding, engaging and motivating audiences across time, screen and location. Multiscreen TV campaigns backed by insights, scaled inventory, and advanced measurement have become simpler, and it’s more necessary to reach audiences today than it was ever before.

• Having scale in linear and addressable TV will result in better targeting and measurement. Not enough streaming inventory exists; brands need to buy linear, addressable, cable, and streaming to get scale and get the results they need.
• TV is a more mature media ecosystem with foundational measurement but there is a need for it to change. Digital has no such history. Companies are having difficulty shifting from TV foundational measurements to digital. A seismic shift is needed in the traditional TV world; it needs to become friends with FAANG companies. Buyers, in particular, would like companies to work together. This cooperation will benefit both. The industry will be navigating this for a while, since it is like turning an ocean liner.
• There is a need to show advertiser and agencies the benefit of data-driven campaigns. The ability to drive multi-screen targeted advertising is very powerful.
• Addressable looks more like digital and will be impression-based. Impressions will be measured. In the future, addressable will also be audited.

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11:20 – 11:35am – INTERVIEW
Media’s Role in Diversity
Radha Subramanyam – President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS
Moderator: Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – President & CEO, ARF

Summary:
ARF’s President and CEO Scott McDonald introduced this interview with Radha Subramanyam, President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer at CBS, acknowledging that diversity has been an issue for decades, with misrepresentations and absences in media part of the problem. But media began to change attitudes during the AIDS crisis with inclusion of gay characters in programming, and its impact on diversity was realized. In today’s hyper-alert cultural climate, CBS takes diversity seriously and tries to improve its methods every day for its viewers and employees.

• Making very clear statements and announcements to the public and their employees supporting diversity is not only the right thing to do, it is now a business mandate that infuses everything they touch.
• CBS is increasing representation in their writing rooms by committing at least 25% of its script development budget to creators and producers who are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) starting with the 2021-22 development season, in partnership with the NAACP.
• CBS’ leadership in this space normalizes and clears the path for more representation efforts.
• Data and research delivers the consumer voice and allows CBS’ research group to “speak truth to power” as they bake their findings into every pilot and all the work they produce.
• Advice for conference attendees:
  • Be open to change and data findings.
  • Pay attention not only to the big picture but also the crucial nuances; stories have to be true, authentic and sensitive.
• Integrating and translating insights to a human level is complex – it is a mix of art and science that demands careful interpretation.
• COVID’s effect started simultaneous personal and professional journeys that brought the pandemic’s reality into programming with Zoom quarantine episodes. Industry unions have announced safety protocols aimed at keeping employees and talent safe.

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11:35 – 11:50am – PRESENTATION
Accurate Portrayal of Women and Girls in Advertising = Sales Lift
Nadine Karp McHugh – President, SEEHER, ANA
Jennifer Pelino – SVP Omni Channel Media, Media Center of Excellence, IRI

Summary:
The purchasing power of women in the U.S. is up to $15 trillion annually as women account for 85% of all consumer purchase decisions. However, the majority of women report not seeing accurate portrayals of themselves in media and advertising, and the top concern for 90% of parents is not seeing role models for girls. In this presentation, Nadine Karp McHugh, President of SeeHer at the ANA, and Jennifer Pelino, EVP of Omni Channel Media at IRI, discussed research that shows that improving the portrayal of women and girls in advertising and media, not only impacts brand equity, but sales.

• The Gender Equality Measure (GEMTM) quantifies consumer reaction to portrayals of women in advertising and programming. When positive GEMTM scores are realized, purchase intent goes up by 45% among women and 26% among all consumers.
• To investigate whether higher GEMTM scores also drive sales lift, SeeHer partnered with IRI on an attribution study of over 20 ads, including creatives in Spanish, of various lengths, aired across 428 programs of all genres. Brands who participated in the study included SeeHer members: Kellogg’s, Clorox, L’Oréal Paris, ABInBev, Keurig Dr Pepper, and Hershey’s.
• GEMTM creative scores plotted against sales lift showed that ads with the highest sales lift had the highest GEM scores. In addition, GEMTM scores higher than 100 had 5X greater sales lift than for those below 100. The suggests that higher scoring GEMTM campaigns (>100) can garner incremental sales lifts worth up to $2 million.
• Context matters. Advertising in a high GEMTM scoring TV program (>100) resulted in 2X sales lift. There was also a synergistic effect of airing high GEMTM scoring ads in high GEMTM scoring TV programming. For example, L’Oréal Paris saw 3.68% synergic lift, and Clorox saw a 3.11% synergic lift.
• Accurately portraying women and girls in advertising and media need to be the next growth strategy for businesses.

Integration of Product and Personal Motivations Yields KPI Lifts
Charles Cantu – CEO, Reset Digital
Bill Harvey – Chairman, RMT
Bill McKenna – CEO, RMT
Kasper Skou –CEO, Semasio

Summary:
Charles Cantu, CEO of Reset Digital, Bill Harvey, Chairman of RMT, Bill McKenna, CEO of RMT, and Kasper Skou, CEO of Samasio, demonstrated how targeting programmatic by personal motivations, as well as the more familiar product motivations, yields substantially better business outcomes.

• Using both personal motivations (such as money, power, belonging, security) together with product motivations (e.g., performance for cars, decay prevention for toothpaste) when targeting consumers for all ad campaigns will achieve higher campaign ROI. Adding other targeting criteria, such as previous purchase behavior and interpersonal influence will further increase the effectiveness of the ad.
• Product Motivations and Personal Motivations have been around for decades.
  • Product Motivations for auto: styling, performance, safety, resale value, gas mileage; Product Motivations for toothpaste: decay prevention, tooth whitening, breath freshening.
  • Personal Motivations: money, power, belonging, security.
  • A test using these motivations was undertaken using Bill Harvey’s new sci-fi novel, Pandemonium Live to All Devices. The book’s Product Motivations: custom to book, sci-fi, psychics, conspiracies, AI/robots, aliens. Personal Motivations: power, heroism/leadership, self-transcendence, experience/sex.
• • Targeting applied included: The Semasio Approach (semantic profiling), RMT Motivational Types (audience, contextual, and product/personal motivations).
  • Reset Digital applied its neuro-programmatic platform and the analysis provided top-rated resonances. The analysis suggested networks, programs, dayparts, and a resonance score for the proposed ads.
  • The motivation targeting engagement rates using Personal Motivations and Product Motivations, individually, were higher than the book marketing benchmark; however, using both the personal and product motivations produced an engagement rate of .52% vs. the book marketing benchmark of .10%. This demonstrates the need to use both Personal and Product Motivations when targeting for all ad campaigns.

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Amazon Ad Pre-Test Platform
Jeff Bander – Chief Revenue Officer USA, Eye Square

Summary:
E-commerce advertising takes advantage of native digital retail environments where unknown brands can boost their product visibility. Because Amazon is quickly becoming a must-have performance marketing channel and capturing ad spend that may soon rival Facebook and Google, Jeff Bander prioritizes Amazon as a dynamic testing platform for Eye Square’s live ad insertion technology.

• About 50% of product searches now start on Amazon directly.
• The difference between the channels is that, unlike Facebook and Google, consumers make their final purchase decision on Amazon.
• According to Internet Retailer, nearly half of online sales in the U.S. occur on the platform.

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Context Effects: Enhancing the ROI Upside

12:15 – 12:30pm – Solving Brand Suitability
Robert Cukierman – SVP, Strategy & Measurement, Zefr
Kara Manatt – SVP, Intelligence Solutions & Strategy, Magna Global

Summary:
Brand suitability, as Zefr’s Robert Cukierman defined it for this presentation, is the alignment of a brand’s advertising with content that makes sense for their image, customer base, and business objectives. Targeting this relevance is where brands have been least successful and Cukierman and Kara Manatt of Magna Global put together a study that used human-supervised machine learning to test ad relevance with brand preferences added to the mix.

• Ads are more relevant when using brand preferences and machine learning together.
• Brand suitability targeting is 23% more effective than demo and 45% more effective than keyword targeting at delivering on ad relevance.
• The same ad drives greater purchase intent, with 11% more impact with “human in the loop” approach.
• Misalignment runs the risk of hurting brand perceptions in addition to reducing ad impact.
• Consumer POV on quality is what matters most: While there is a consensus on high quality, low quality is far more nuanced.
  • Of machine identified “low quality” content, content rated as high quality by consumers tends to be more “enjoyable” and “interesting” than content rated as low quality by consumers: 55% of consumers have a broader definition of content quality than what is traditionally considered high quality.

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12:35 – 12:50pm – Unlocking the Secrets of Mobile Advertising Effectiveness
Jon Brand – SVP, Consulting, Senior Practice Leader, GfK

Summary:
With advertising facing increased challenges in getting and keeping consumer attention, GfK’s Jon Brand presented results from a comparative study that leveraged data to pinpoint consumer reactions to the same ad across different devices (smart TVs, PCs, tablets, and smart phones). Although mobile advertising may be viewed less favorably than TV and video pre-roll, well-executed mobile ads can be as or more effective than ads viewed on TV/laptops. Testing ads across devices helps understand ad attention flow and the attributes crucial for engagement.

• Emotional response is consistent across viewing environments and video attracts more attention than display ads.
• If the ad works on mobile, it will work everywhere else.
  • Tell stories that have intriguing start and are easy to follow.
  • Convey a simple, straightforward message that establishes an emotional connection.
  • Use more close-in shots, vibrant colors and logos that stand out.

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12:55 – 1:10pm – Visual Attention as a Common Media Currency
Neil Eddleston – Managing Director, JCDecaux OneWorld
Mike Follett – Managing Director, Lumen

Summary:
There is a difference between what people could see and what they actually do see, according to Neil Eddleston, Managing Director of JCDecaux One World, and Mike Follett, Managing Director of Lumen, in their presentation that explored the challenges of viewability definitions. Questioning whether using the same “unit of attention” across all media could discover a reality of views, they conducted research using infrared eye-tracking to compare advertising on mobile, digital display and digital out-of-home (DOOH).

• Only 20% of viewable desktop display ads get noticed, with only 8% getting more than 1 second of attention.
• Only 30% of desktop Facebook ads get noticed, with many more getting at least 1 second of attention.
• DOOH makes mobile work harder, with combined exposure to both driving major increase in recall.
• A common unit of attention cross-media is possible

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Context Effects: Enhancing the ROI Upside – Moderated Sessions
Jon Brand – SVP, Consulting, Senior Practice Leader, GfK
Robert Cukierman – SVP, Strategy & Measurement, Zefr
Neil Eddleston – Managing Director, JCDecaux OneWorld
Mike Follett – Managing Director, Lumen
Kara Manatt – SVP, Intelligence Solutions & Strategy, Magna Global
Moderator: Margaret Coles – EVP, Head of West, Edelman Intelligence

Summary:
Margaret Coles of Edelman Intelligence led the conversation with the Context Effect track presenters on actionable insights that would help marketers navigate the new COVID-19 marketing world.

• Translating research findings into action comes down to integrating them at the point of activation, said Robert Cukierman of Zefr, and should be fully integrated within the buying mechanisms. But the volume and velocity of videos being posted on a daily basis makes this extremely difficult.
• Build on the learnings from meta-analysis of ads as the speed at which the advertising world works makes other approaches non-starters, advised Jon Brand of GfK.
• Build databases on an “attention” basis with the understanding that if the ad works on OOH, it will work across digital online too, according to Neil Eddleston of JCDecaux.
• There are huge differences in comparisons across media. Mike Follett of Lumen said everyone assumes digital can do everything, but it is not the case. TV is storytelling—everything else is a poster, including on Facebook.
• Despite the general downturn in consumer response to advertising, Kara Manatt of Magna Global asserted that her clients want to give consumers what they want and the industry is open to learning more to prevent ad blocking.

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Methods: Making Models More Accurate

12:15 – 12:30pm – Extreme is Relative
Oana Dan – Director, Data Science, Nielsen
Lee Shibley – Data Science Associate, Nielsen

Summary:
Oana Dan, Director of Data Science at Nielsen, and Lee Shibley, Senior Data Scientist at Nielsen, discussed the failure of traditional approaches to removing outliers and suggested a better method involving outlier identification through machine learning and its impact on lift metrics.

• Outliers represent real spending by customers pre- and post-exposure.
• Traditional approaches to outliers have serious flaws:
  • Eyeball the outliers and throw them out. Traditional common sense approaches don’t identify outliers because common sense is often relative. There are no standards, which makes it hard to automate. This method is not very scientific and is not recommended.
  • Leave them in. Not a suggested method because they impact the entire results. Outliers do not describe the typical customer.
• A better way to address outliers is to relax assumptions made by “one-size fits all” methods, which are too rigid. Such methods assume normal distribution with thresholds independent of the sample size. Outliers are determined by a one-dimension variable in isolation.
• Extended Isolation Forest (EIF) is a better method for addressing data outliers. It is model-free and easily adaptable. The results of EIF are much improved results since the method removes outliers without impacting the data set. The outliers are identified through machine learning. The overall impact on lift is minimal. All tech sources are free, including Python and open sources.

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12:30 – 12:50pm – Innovative Approach to Combining Probability and Non-Probability Samples
David Dutwin – SVP, Business Ventures & Innovation, NORC at the University of Chicago
David Sterrett – Senior Research Scientist, NORC at the University of Chicago

Summary:
David Dutwin and David Sterrett, researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago, discussed the need to improve the accuracy of marketing survey data with new statistical approaches, specifically, using small domain estimation methods to account for potential bias.

• The goals for sampling for market research purposes are high levels of accuracy and affordability; however, there are challenges with the existing methodologies. Probability research provides strong data quality; however, it is cost-prohibitive. Nonprobability research is very affordable, however; data quality is unpredictable and often highly problematic.
• NORC’s TrueNorth (calibration tool product) provides a method for combining probability and nonprobability samples. Examples of TrueNorth’s methodology were provided for state-level voter surveys, including hard to reach groups. AP VoteCast’s election survey predications were highly accurate in 2018 and will be used for the 2020 elections. TrueNorth methodology was also applied to consumer purchase behavior studies for new cars and light trucks, soft drinks and food products. Consumer market research companies typically use non-probability online samples, which result in an overstatement of consumer purchase behavior. More accurate purchasing forecasts were achieved using TrueNorth’s methodology.
• Improving the accuracy of marketing survey data with new statistical approaches:
  • Non-probability surveys can be made more accurate when combined with probability sample and calibration adjustments (NORC’S TrueNorth calibration tool).
  • Makes possible the use of probability samples in new research contexts where previously only non-probability samples might have been considered.
  • Lower TrueNorth’s implementation costs via automation.
  • Recommendation: Include probability sampling and calibration weighting to assure accuracy in marketing surveys.

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12:55 – 1:10pm – Many Moving Parts: Predicting Brand Growth With Machine Learning Models
The role of advertising, price, and promotion in building short- and long-term sales and brand equity.
Amy Crooks – Manager Research & Development, NCSolutions
Leslie Wood, Ph.D. – Chief Research Officer, NCSolutions

Summary:
Amy Crooks, Manager of Research & Development at NCSolutions, and Leslie Wood, Ph.D., Chief Research Officer of NCSolutions, provided an analysis on the role of advertising, price, and promotion in building short- and long-term sales and brand equity. This research increased the understanding of consumer behavior in response to price changes, and the impact of price variables on sales. This analysis was performed for digital, TV, and print ads across a wide range of CPG products.

• Purchase graphs: machine learning was used to identify relevant buying behavior and flag every U.S. household accordingly. It is a persistent linkage between Homescan, frequent shopper and geodemographic data. This yields the highest quality NCSolutions audiences. Audience building is algorithmic; therefore, consistent and fast.
• Price Graphs are an extension of the purchase graph. The Price Graph holds the price of every UPC in NCSolutions retail stores. NCSolutions matches the day-of-the-week when prices change in each store with the prices paid for items in those stores across the week. Then machine learning is used to fill in prices for items which were not sold in the identified store that week. Having a price graph allows variables to be explored: How does price influence consumers? Is it based on only changes within the same store? Do “Smart Shoppers” look across stores? Is it a percent change or absolute change?
• Decomposition of buyers: The sales lift for different segments of buyers are analyzed. Buyers are separated into two groups: those who bought on promotion vs. not and those who bought on price discount vs. not. The lift with vs. without is compared to calculate a relative difference. The results show how much a promotion or price discount enhanced (or reduced) the effectiveness of advertising for a campaign.
• Modifications of this analysis was necessary due to the Coronavirus.
  • Time-periods in analysis and on graphs are labeled to denote COVID.
  • Consumer purchasing variables added: out-of-stock, extreme buying, increased basket size.
  • Measurement of the impact (incremental $ on exposed households) and current COVID spending patterns must be considered.

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Making Models More Accurate – Moderated Sessions

Amy Crooks – Manager Research & Development, NCSolutions
Oana Dan – Director, Data Science, Nielsen
David Dutwin – SVP, Business Ventures & Innovation, NORC at the University of Chicago
Lee Shibley – Senior Data Scientist, Nielsen
David Sterrett – Senior Research Scientist, NORC at the University of Chicago
Leslie Wood, Ph.D. – Chief Research Officer, NCSolutions
Moderator: Steven Millman – SVP, Research & Operations, Dynata

Summary:
Steven Millman, SVP of Research & Operations at Dynata, moderated the discussion of the Making Models More Accurate track. The details of machine learning, usually a black box, were discussed.

• For machine learning, some researchers required huge sample sizes, therefore a server or cloud-based machine learning is more appropriate. For smaller sample sizes, a laptop is sufficient.
• Outlier detection research is essential to providing clear, true and organized inputs to the models. The decision on what variable to include in the models is critical.
• Minimal sample size for NORC’s TrueNorth is about 400; if the sample is high quality, 200-250 will work.
• The accurate forecasting of NORC’s TrueNorth calibration tool product will be powerful for this Presidential election.
• The next steps for NCSolutions is to look at price discounts and compare tactics across time.

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Inciting Demand: Making Brand Advertising Pay

12:15 – 12:30pm – What it Takes to Build a Credible Business Case for Investment in Brand
Jed Meyer – Managing Director, North America, Ebiquity
Nic Pietersma – Director Analytics, Ebiquity

Summary:
The board room and the marketing community often do not speak the same language. Jed Meyer, Managing Director of North America at Ebiquity, and Nic Pietersma, Director of Analytics at Ebiquity, shared practical recommendations on how to win over key stakeholders in making the case for brand building.

• Do your own homework. Step one to building your credibility is using specific evidence from your business, using your own data. Benchmarks do not carry water beyond marketing or marketing insights teams as board members question the limitations of benchmark studies (e.g., selection bias, lack of relevance to your specific vertical or business).
• Develop a test and learn culture. Keep in mind that a more complicated model is not always a credible model. Instead, set up a geo-test. Testing is always a winner with senior stakeholders. Just watch out for common errors in test design (e.g., insufficient sample size).
• Case study: Direct Line Group (Insurance). Direct Line Group, the largest insurance company in the U.K., made the case for investing in the brand (vs. reducing the price point) by exploring the impact of brand equity and trust in price comparison websites (PCWs) for their two brands (Churchill – better known but more overhead vs. Privilege – lower price point). They found that a stronger brand (i.e., Churchill) had more advantages in a PCW environment: higher CTR and 33% of the consumers were more willing to pay a small premium.
• Case study: Direct response client. This client was roughly investing its annual profit in digital display, based on a machine learning (ML) attribution model. The board asked for a test to validate. A geo-test found that the ML model was too optimistic about digital display. The client changed the strategy by investing in TV and other channels, which lead to a leap in profits. This case study illustrate how a simple test can validate a far more complicated system.

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12:35 – 12:50pm – The ROI of Brand Love
Pawanesh Malla – Associate Manager, NA Media, Advanced Analytics & ROI Engine, PepsiCo
Kevin Moeller – Head of Media Analytics & Insight, NA Beverages, PepsiCo

Summary:
Consumer-centricity requires marketers to build relationships and therefore equity around their brands, but marketers often lack informed data on how equity drives sales, especially long-term. Similar to other CPG companies, PepsiCo uses MMM but this method only shows short-term results (4 months, post-campaign). Pawanesh Malla, Frito-Lay Lead at PepsiCo, and Kevin Moeller, NA Beverages at PepsiCo, shared how they used brand love to measure equity driven by media and communication, and how it drives the bottom line.

• PepsiCo found that brand love, as an index of selected measures, is easy to track and observe while indicating long term success. They selected key brand health metrics to use as proxy for brand love by analyzing 15 brand health metrics over the last five years from the YouGov Brandindex. Then they layered brand love over a MMM framework to enable understanding of the long term impact of media on sales.
• PepsiCo found that 50% more incremental sales is attributable to media through brand love. Total media ROI when taking into account brand love is 1.48X higher than reported by MMM when long-term drivers are added.
• Next steps include a global rollout to understand nuances between different business units and regions.

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12:55 – 1:10pm – How the “Whole Person” Reaction Predicts Video Effectiveness
Amanda Currell – VP, Kantar
David Evans, Ph.D. – Senior Manager, Custom Research, Microsoft

Summary:
Amanda Currell of Kantar and David Evans of Microsoft discussed how online video branding assets for Microsoft 365 was optimized using whole-person measurement.

• Attention is not enough as people are “built to filter.”
• Kantar’s framework for the whole-person reaction spectrum measures key conscious to non-conscious responses in a single, scalable study.
• For Microsoft 365’s rebranding campaign, Kantar analyzed their online video assets (e.g., anthem videos, feature how-tos, thought leadership).
• On a single video last year, Microsoft was able to make optimizations based on a whole-person analysis that lead to 75% gain in brand recall, a 50% gain in message recall, and a 56% gain in purchase intent.
• This whole-person framework helped Microsoft better empathize with their customers by better understanding their psychology, as well as help make better videos, and help connect the creative producers with research.

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Inciting Demand Making Brand Advertising Pay – Moderated Sessions

Amanda Currell – VP, Kantar
David Evans, Ph.D. – Senior Manager, Custom Research, Microsoft
Pawanesh Malla – ROI Engine & Advanced Analytics, Frito-Lay Lead, PepsiCo
Jed Meyer – Managing Director, North America, Ebiquity
Kevin Moeller – Head of Media Analytics & Insight, NA Beverages, PepsiCo
Nic Pietersma – Director Analytics, Ebiquity
Moderator: Chris Fosdick – Managing Partner, The Cambridge Group

Summary:
In this moderated discussion for the track, Inciting Demand: Making Brand Advertising Pay, the speakers answered questions from the attendees about their respective presentations, as well as further discuss some of the key themes from the track, especially the importance of brand building and overcoming internal cultural challenges.

• Bridge the tension between performance and brand building. Make sure to accomplish both by understanding their relationship as well as the impact of equity to drive sales, especially long-term.
• Make sure you are speaking the same language to get buy-in from stakeholders as well as other teams and units.
• Good research is credible and easy for people to buy into – don’t overcomplicate things.
• You can’t just bring in data; you need to bring in empathy.

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$2.2 Trillion ROI Study Ranks OTT, TV, Digital
Bill Harvey – Executive Chairman BHC
Audrey Steele – EVP, FOX

Summary:
Bill Harvey, Executive Chairman of BHC, discussed his ROI study which ranks OTT, TV, and digital based upon ad spend and sales data. These findings are the result of a 5-year study that correlated $2.2 trillion in sales with $48 billion in adspend by month across all U.S. national TV and digital media for automotive, CPG, and QSR, and the study finds certain media types have the highest ROI by far.

• Premium OTT (TV network streaming, Tubi, Pluto, etc.) has been under-used by advertisers and agencies.
  • Premium OTT return on ad spend (ROAS) is highest. Premium OTT is so strong because: it’s addressable; no “Skip in 5”; lower ad load; watch when wanted; streaming attracts younger viewers.
  • Linear TV ranked second. Linear TV remains relevant.
  • It would be a mistake to assume that premium OTT alone would have the same high ROI results. The synergy effect between linear TV and premium OTT is critical since premium OTT misses about a third of the U.S. population. Adequate inventory to sufficiently cover two thirds of the U.S. population cannot be purchased without linear TV.
• Non-Premium digital video (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) has been overused.
  • Non-premium digital video is third place in terms of ROI despite lower digital CPMs.
  • Marginal utility analysis indicates non-premium digital media is saturated.
  • However, non-premium digital video continues to be used more than unsaturated premium OTT.
• Advertisers and agencies should seek the right balance of TV, premium OTT, non-premium digital video for higher ROI.
• • Synergy effects visible in the findings point to using a mix of all three, but much more of premium OTT than was used in 2019.
  • Recommended optimal spend allocation indicates the need for a shift to premium OTT. Based on an algorithm which analyzed millions of dollars allocated between premium and non-premium digital video, the combination that produced the best ROI: 71% for premium video, 29% for non-premium video. Actual ad spend is 14% for premium video and 86% for non-premium video.
• The analysis should include not only CPM but marginal utility ROI.

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Attention by Spot Length. What Is The True Communication Value of Your Unit Length?
Joanne Leong – VP, Director, Global Media Partnerships, Dentsu
Tristan Webster – VP, Data & Insights at TVision

Summary:
In a specific deep dive into unit lengths of TV ads, Joanne Leong of Dentsu and Tristan Webster of TVision partnered to analyze attention in a time when attention spans are shorter than ever. Answering the question “What is the true communication value of your unit length?”, this speed paper presentation adds more clarity to the price paid versus “time to talk” debate.

• There is less time to communicate than you might think, regardless of the spot length:
  • Most ad seconds will be heard and not seen, and a lot will be missed.
  • An average 30 second ad’s total opportunity to communicate is 16 seconds.
• The gap between amount of time to communicate vs. airtime bought varies by spot length.
• Audio is an important element of TV creative that should not be underestimated.
• The right unit mix will depend on campaign goals. Outside of price paid vs. OTC, there are other strategic considerations that take into account the role both short and longer lengths play in building reach, frequency, synergy and driving brand KPIs.

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2:00 – 2:30pm – KEYNOTE
The Future of Advertising Investment
Laura Martin, CFA & CMT – Entertainment & Internet Analyst, Needham & Company, LLC

Summary:
Laura Martin, CFA & CMT, Entertainment and Internet Analyst at Needham & Company, LLC, provided a Wall Street perspective about the metrics and dollars of the media ecosystem and changes due to COVID-19. COVID’s near-term and long-term impacts through 2024 on the TV and film industry economics, with a special focus on advertising positives and negatives, were explained.

• Pre-COVID, digital and TV were the most important in terms of ad size. This is still true. TV and digital will be more resistant to ad spending losses.
• Lack of live sports is leading to U.S. linear TV disconnects.
• There is a large installed base of OTT. Ads decline from 28 to 8 ads/hours when viewers watch OTT. Higher CPMs.
• Cord swapping, not cutting.
• Churn rises; Customer acquisition costs rise (due to clutter and inertia).
• Higher streaming hours/adoption; as consumers try more streaming services, there will be higher content spending.
• SVOD will continue to grow; however, AVOD is expected to grow even faster than SVOD.
• UCG platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat attract legitimate advertisers, although they may not be brand safe. These platforms attract 18-34-year-old consumers.
• Video games benefit forever.
• U.S. physical media (live sports, theme parks, box office, live music, Broadway) as well as their indirect assets (merchandise, food, etc.) represent a $400 billion per year loss due to COVID-19. Wall Street will forever look at physical media as riskier.
• Wall Street prefers companies with diversified revenue streams. Resources that can be bundled are more valuable. Apple has multiple products, thus, multiple revenue streams while Netflix has only one revenue stream.
• Brands will matter more.
• Competitive advantages required for success: content, brands, money.

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2:35 – 2:55pm – THE LAST WORD
Nishat Mehta – President, Media Center of Excellence, IRI
Jed Meyer – Managing Director, North America, Ebiquity
Radha Subramanyam – President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS
Moderator: Shelley Zalis – CEO, The Female Quotient

Summary:
Anchor commentators closed out the second day of the conference by sharing their perspectives on what they heard and what it means. Below are edited highlights from the conversation.

• Diversity and intersectionality is the new normal. Radha Subramanyam, President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer at CBS, observed that diversity used to be “in a box” and “it was very exciting to see diversity normalized rather than to the side” as “most of us are being tired of being in a box.” “Intersectionality is now a quarter of what we all do.” Today’s ARF sessions weren’t making the case for diversity, what’s front and center was women as well as people of color controlling the majority of spend. Shelly Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient, thanked not only the speakers but the ARF and Scott for putting diversity front and center as the new normal.
• There was a push to re-introduce humanity and empathy in research. Nishat Mehta, President, Media Center of Excellence, IRI, noted that when he was watching some of today’s sessions, he saw the “recognition that machines are not going to take over the world.” Humans cannot be “reduced to one thing – we are nuanced,” and “frankly, the pandemic shows that we are responding to it differently.” Jed Meyer, Managing Director of North America at Ebiquity, agreed and pointed out the importance of continuing to ask questions and not just assume because it was machine learning.
• It is crucial to have diversity at the table, especially in research. Shelly noted that “bias in, bias out.” Seeing real data, not just attitudinal data, validate the business case for diversity. Nishat pointed out that even the most empathetic among us can’t put ourselves in [everyone’s] shoes.” “We all need different thoughts, multiple voices in the room when decisions are being made.” Jed agreed and asked more companies to sponsor ARF WIDE to make progress in this area.

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2:55 – 3:00pm – CLOSING REMARKS
Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

10:00 – 10:30am
ARF COGNITION COUNCIL PRESENTATION
Context Effects: Updates from the Front Lines
Kimberly Rose Clark, Ph.D. – Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Psychological & Brain Science, Dartmouth College
Robin Garfield – EVP, Research and Scheduling, CNN
Bill Harvey – Executive Chairman, RMT, Inc.
Jay Mattlin – Council Director, ARF
Horst Stipp, Ph.D – EVP, Research & Innovation, ARF

Summary:
This special presentation from the ARF Cognition Council was one of several presentations during this year’s AUDIENCExSCIENCE conference that focused on the question of how marketers can use context to enhance their ads’ performance and avoid context that might impact the ad and brand negatively. This event provided new research insights on the effects of “context” – defined as content that surrounds an ad.

• The ARF’s Horst Stipp started the event with a review of the research evidence and concluded that it has established the ability of context to enhance (or diminish) the effectiveness of commercial messages and that context-ad alignments are likely to be particularly valuable for marketers who want to take advantage of context to improve ad impact. However, there are some open questions and those were addressed by the presenters.
• First, Bill Harvey, Executive Chairman at RMT, Inc., addressed the question of how to maximize context effect benefits. Data from his studies indicate that substantial improvements in ad performance are most likely when consumers’ reactions to context and the ad align on several emotional dimensions, rather than just one.
• Kimberly Rose Clark, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer at the Dept. of Psychological & Brain Science, Dartmouth College, has explored whether lack of alignment might hurt ad performance. She described her experiment which found that ads performed well when viewers experienced “loss” prior to an ad that focuses on “gain.” This finding suggests that we seem to have another “one size doesn’t fit all” situation: alignment usually works well, but lack of alignment can also bring positive context effects under specific conditions.
• The third presenter, Robin Garfield, EVP of Research and Scheduling at CNN, addressed an issue that also generated questions during the Q&A: Advertising in (cable) news. Robin showed data to dispel the “myth” that news is frequently a depressing or anxiety-provoking ad environment and described the empowering function of news information. Further, she showed research that confirm the power of context-ad alignment, emphasizing the role of values, that is, the benefits of aligning an ad’s values with those of the target consumer – who has chosen a particular (news) content based on those values.

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10:30 – 11:00am
Media Reactions: The Places That Bring Great Advertising to Life
Kate Ginsburg – VP, Media & Content Marketing, Kantar NA
Duncan Southgate – Global Brand Director, Kantar

Summary:
Understanding what people think about advertising from consumer and marketer perspectives is explored in Kantar’s new study, Media Reactions, presented by Duncan Southgate and Kate Ginsburg. Measuring audience attitudes to ads in different environments within a very complicated media landscape is at the core of the study, encompassing online and offline channels, brand equity and rankings of top performing media brands and channels.

• Offline media channels’ ad equity is higher thanks to more trust and less intrusive advertising.
• TV ads are more polarizing than all other media channels.
• Limiting frequency levels can reduce irritation and improve effectiveness.
• Media Reactions awarded TikTok with the inaugural global ad equity media brands #1 ranking.
• Implications for advertisers and agencies: tailor your advertising approach based on consumer expectations; keep pace with changing consumer habits and expectations; invest in media environments which reflect your brand aspirations.
• Implications for media brands: take inspiration from best in class media channels and brands; appeal to both the consumer and the marketer; assess whether your ad equity makes the most of your brand.

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11:00 – 11:05am
WELCOME – Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF

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11:05 – 11:20am
KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
How Can Disruption Accelerate Growth?
Reed Cundiff – CEO, Kantar NA
Moderator: Mary Ann Packo – Chair, Board of Directors, ARF

Summary:
Mary Ann Packo, Chair of ARF’s Board of Directors, welcomed Reed Cundiff, CEO of Kantar NA, to their virtual fireside chat. Reed provided a high level perspective about the market disruptions accelerating the growth of existing trends, including the dynamic changes taking place in media, consumer behavior and the insights profession. This environment creates interesting opportunities as great brands use disruption to gain market share. The insight function will be critical to this period since insights professionals can help brands attain this growth.

• This is an opportunity to shed light on the changes in consumer behavior. For instance, just under half of consumers have tried new brands and they plan to continue buying those brands.
• In a global market disruption, resources and budgets are a challenge; however, the biggest challenge is the turtle mindset of clients, a fearful mindset. We should not be looking to take cover.
• In this period of digital transformation, the raw materials, processes and delivery of insight work has changed. History can no longer be used as a guide, and there is a need to move away from siloed thinking and functions.
• The industry can participate in social justice and increasing diversity. Diversity in the workforce as well as diversity of culture and thought are the right thing to do and better for the clients. Understand the market and consider all customers, including underserved communities, when developing brand messaging. Increasing numbers of consumers are unwilling to let brands sit on the sidelines on social issues, although it depends on how close the brand is to the cause and the pre-existing mindset.
• In conclusion: Know yourself and your philosophies. “Speak truth to power.” Demonstrate agility. The rules of thumb no longer work. Stay in balance in terms of work and personal life. Stay healthy and safe.

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11:20 – 11:35am
PRESENTATION – Unpacking Data Inputs for TV Attribution

Howard Shimmel – President, Janus Strategy & Insights, LLC
Jim Spaeth – Partner, Sequent Partners
Alice Sylvester – Partner, Sequent Partners
Introductions: Jane Clarke – CEO, Managing Director, CIMM

Summary:
Television attribution results have been seen to vary dramatically and inexplicably from provider to provider. To explore how different TV data inputs vary and impact attribution results, Janus Strategy & Insights, LLC and Sequent Partners conducted an in-depth study to provide fact-based observations and concrete recommendations for attribution providers and the industry. Howard Shimmel, President of Janus Strategy & Insights, LLC, and Jim Spaeth and Alice Sylvester at Sequent Partners shared the key findings below.

• Key television attribution inputs are highly inconsistent from provider to provider and across test schedules used in the study. The schedules the providers use may not resemble the advertisers’ TV buy. Most of the providers were at 90% match rates, with two providers at match rates in the 70s. But every provider was challenged at some point.
• Outcome differ inexplicitly by provider.
• Provider exposure data impacts outcome measurement approaches more than occurrence data.
• Methodology, rather than technology, is the root cause of key differences in inputs and outcomes. Differences in underlying technology (e.g., AI, watermarking, fingerprinting for occurrences and ACR, STB, or both for exposure) do not offer simple explanations.
• Do the differences matter? Yes. Difference in occurrence data is not a problem for directional guidance but matters for ROAS difference.
• We need to agree on the exposure criteria to make attribution results more comparable.

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11:35 – 11:55am
PANEL – The Necessity of Cross-Media Measurement
Kanishka Das – Global eBusiness Analytics & Insights Leader, P&G
Brad Smallwood – VP of Marketing Science, Facebook
Radha Subramanyam – President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS
Moderator: Artie Bulgrin – Measurement Consultant & Project Lead, ANA

Summary:
As media options grow and fragment, so do options for measurement, rendering essential metrics like cross-media reach and frequency unmeasurable. This panel reviewed the business case for a cross-media measurement solution, the work of the WFA to establish global cross-media measurement principles and how this approach is now being applied by the ANA to create a U.S. system of cross-media measurement. Below are edited highlights from the conversation.

• Cross media measurement remains a necessity because of the importance of reach and frequency (R&F) for publishers, broadcasters, etc. since all business models start and stop with the consumer. They need a full view of the consumer and we don’t have that yet because the data is too fragmented; you might have one platform but not all. There is no coordination across platforms. (Kanishka Das, P&G)
• Although frequency is understood across the mediums, the bigger challenges lie in the complexity of choices, and the increasing silos, where the constant opportunities are making problems worse. Creating a basic building block is hard because it requires the community to speak in the same voice, and the privacy piece will require a level of census data. (Brad Smallwood, Facebook)
• The business issue goes to the commitment to customers. With so many more platforms, it’s more important than it ever was, and the advertiser still needs to know where the dollars go. I worry about repetitive and effective messaging, and the preponderance of issues makes it critically important. And it’s taking so long because it is hard—although there is a lot of technological progress—it is not unachievable, but it is still incredibly hard. (Radha Subramanyam, CBS)

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11:55am – 12:10pm – Industry POV with Comscore
Bill Livek – CEO and Executive Vice Chairman, Comscore
Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – President & CEO, ARF

Summary:
Bill Livek, CEO and Executive Vice Chairman of Comscore, joined Scott McDonald, President & CEO of ARF, to share his perspective on the rapidly evolving media landscape, and discuss why he believes TV will never be the same and neither will its currency. Bill also spoke about the opportunities and new consumer behaviors that result from economic disruptions.

• Measurable, unduplicated reach and optimal frequency of impressions are critical. On the topic of practical challenges to address in cross-platform, Bill answered that the opportunity to see does not equal exposure; there is a need to measure impressions. He also noted that panel-based research has problems, such as declining response rate.
• Content is king. As consumers are watching more content, superior content will rise to the top in the content arms race.
• Consumers are watching more TV but avoiding ads; however, ad supported TV becomes more valuable when people are watching other media.
• Addressability of ads represents a disruption. Their reach and frequency must be measured. Purchasing decisions are made at the household level, and addressability considers each household.
• Thriftiness of consumers will be a permanent change. The Depression impacted that generation’s consumers as well as the next generation of consumers. The convenience of online shopping and searching has also made price comparisons easier: e.g., online shoppers who have never been in a Walmart learn that Walmart’s prices are lower than Amazon’s prices.
• Advertising works, but a lot of advertising will be needed to motivate consumers to spend post-COVID so that brands can earn that marginal dollar.

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The Media Future is Here

12:20 – 12:35pm Audience Found – A Journey Through Television
Marci Cohen – VP, Marketing Research & Insights, Spectrum Reach

Summary:
Modern technology has shaped viewer habits and vice versa. As audiences discover new ways to access content, advertisers have additional data to find them where they are. Spectrum’s Marci Cohen outlined the findings of their Ventura study to illustrate television’s continuing pervasiveness over the universe of choices. Combining subscriber data with leading 3rd-party data to understand TV behaviors from the perspective of Ventura County, CA viewers provided audience insights.

• Ventura viewers (60%) are finding TV outside of traditional Primetime.
• App viewing is 12% more likely to occur after “Primetime” than traditional TV viewing.
• Ventura viewers watch 94% more TV on the app a day than last year.

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12:40 – 12:55pm Over/under? Average vs. Exact Commercial Metrics
Leah Christian – VP, Data Science, Nielsen
Kay Ricci – Principal Data Scientist, Nielsen

Summary:
In analyzing average and exact commercial ratings, Nielsen is working towards the future of cross-media measurement. The ideal world of measurement envisions an exact commercial audience for each ad, whether linear or addressable, providing sub-minute granularity of TV measurement and a comparable measurement across all screens. For this study, Nielsen’s Leah Christian and Kay Ricci analyzed minute and sub-minute data to find out how ratings differ within programs and ads.

• Key factors impacting differences: campaign size, audience size, ad position. Variance decreases as campaign size increases.
• There are small differences overall between average and exact commercial ratings; even smaller differences between exact minute and sub-minute ratings.
• There are larger differences for ads with higher audiences and ads first in a pod, in both the minute and sub-minute data.
• Moving to an exact commercial metric at the sub-minute level will be key to more granular ad measurement.

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1:00 – 1:15pm Data Driven Linear + OTT Addressable = Reach Optimization
Peter Doe – Chief Research Officer, Clypd

Summary:
TV advertising is moving beyond age and gender targets to embrace advanced targeting. The power of data driven linear targeting combined with OTT addressable data is examined in Pete Doe’s presentation for Clypd. Accounting for duplication of audiences on both platforms and the desired demographics within each, and integrating the data allows custom schedule optimization to deliver the best reach.

• Data Driven Linear and OTT together deliver more reach than either alone.
• Disparate data sources need to be harnessed and harmonized. Perfect deterministic data are unattainable as every data point has a probability of being correct or incorrect.
• Audience measurement is inherently probabilistic – must be transparent, consistent and show business value.
• Success here depends on collaboration.

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1:20 – 1:35pm Work/Life Balance: What WFH Really Means for Media Usage
Peter Katsingris – SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen

Summary:
While it is no surprise that media usage has increased due to quarantines and social distancing, other key themes that emerged from Nielson’s August 2020 study framed an altered audience landscape. As streaming and connectivity to the internet is about to cross the 50% threshold, the employee has become the consumer with more freedom for work-life balance.

• Working from home—or working from anywhere—has viewers hooked on choice.
• Media usage shifts as more people work from home and adjust to lifestyle changes.
• Streaming is on the rise and will remain a media staple.
• Engagement and productivity is not impacted as much as originally suspected.
• Remote has local implications as people invest more in their communities.
• Radio consumption increases as workers listen from home offices; media planners must include radio and TV to access 90% of adults each week.

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1:40 – 1:55pm CIIM: Capturing Culture’s Direct Contribution to Sales
Carlos Santiago – President & Chief Strategist, Santiago Solutions Group and Co-founder, ANA-AIMM, Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing
Jim Spaeth – Partner, Sequent Partners

Summary:
Marketers need to be relevant to multicultural consumers. AIMM has created a cultural relevance measure that identifies the impact and effectiveness of cultural insights in ads and programming and how these have the potential to affect sales lift—the Cultural Insights Impact Measure ™ (CIIM). Carlos Santiago (ANA-AIMM) and Jim Spaeth (Sequent Partners) explained the research objective and ad sampling design behind the metric along with the findings that validated its use.

• CIIM proved that consumers connect much more deeply with ads and content that reflect their culture genuinely.
• Culture significantly increases ad effectiveness 2-3x and enhances brand perception 2x.
• Ads with highest cultural relevance in CIIM’s top quartile show almost 3x the purchase intent of ads rated in bottom quartile.
• Cultural Relevance together with segment-specific purchase intent, is a significant indicator of an ad’s sales impact.

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The Media Future is Here – Moderated Session

Marci Cohen – VP, Marketing Research & Insights, Spectrum Reach
Leah Christian – VP, Data Science, Nielsen
Pete Doe – Chief Research Officer, Clypd
Peter Katsingris – SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen
Kay Ricci – Principal Data Scientist, Nielsen
Carlos Santiago – President & Chief Strategist, Santiago Solutions Group and Co-founder, ANA-AIMM, Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing
Jim Spaeth – Partner, Sequent Partners
Moderator: Paul Donato, Chief Research Officer, ARF

Summary:
The future of media was the topic of this group discussion led by Paul Donato, CRO of ARF, with the presenters from The Media Future is Here track. Topics ranged from the biggest challenges in the next three years, how social unrest and the pandemic will change marketing overall, to cookies and TikTok. Below are edited highlights.

• The big headline is that we have to have high quality research catch up with the hype. The challenge is that everyone wants to target the multicultural audience but finding quality data is challenging. The reliable data is measurement. (Jim Spaeth, Sequent Partners)
• One of the other big challenges is consistent measurement, and being able to deduplicate and attribute outcomes across platforms in whatever viewers are consuming. (Leah Christian, Nielsen)
• Data vs research are different things—measuring people vs. devices is more important as they shift to digital. There’s more than one person in front of the screen; we don’t want to go back to household diaries. (Pete Doe, Clypd)
• The pandemic is propelling the realization that consumers want to be reflected as they are—their identity, abilities, and culture. Purchase intent goes up when advertising includes these elements. Even with the social inequities, consumers want systemic change and brands to take a stand. (Carlos Santiago, ANA-AIMM)
• Business is moving forward despite working from home, with half the staff back in the office comfortably, and able to operate productively. (Marci Cohen, Spectrum Reach)

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Video Content: Getting Programming & Ad Formats Right

12:20 – 12:35pm Breaking the Glass Ceiling
Rebecca Fine – Sr. Research Manager, Samba TV
Nicole Samrao – Research Manager, Samba TV

Summary:
Rebecca Fine and Nicole Samrao from Samba TV, presented their research which revealed viewership trends for female-led TV programming and uncovered marketing best practices to attract audiences to this programming.

• Utilizing Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and a research panel of 3M HHs, Samba TV researchers investigated the viewership for female-led program content on cable and broadcast television.
• Analysis of program viewership by gender, geography, race/ethnic background shows that all audiences watch shows with strong female leads. Men consume more of this content than expected. Black women are heavy viewers of female-led programs, especially on cable TV.
• Advertisers should not artificially narrow the audience selected for the brand’s TV ad. The viewers of these programs are medium TV viewers with a $50K-$150K HH Income, and these viewers are valuable targets for advertisers.
• Advertisers planning a campaign on a female-led cable or broadcast TV program should consider: seeking fresh but not snobby content; considering well-rated, smart content blocks; including representative shows in the TV media plan (diversity is key); embracing drama programming as well crime and legal dramas.

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12:40 – 12:55pm The Power of Short-Form Video
Paul Cavalluzzi – Director, Analytics & Insights, Publicis Media

Summary:
There have been dramatic shifts in traditional linear TV consumption since January 2014, driven by both shifting means of distribution and more selective consumers. Paul Cavalluzzi of Publicis Media discussed his firm’s partnership with NBCU to analyze the dramatic shifts in traditional linear TV consumption and the impact of short and long-form digital video.

• Motivations for consuming across formats [short form and Full-Episode Player (FEP)] differ on opportunity but not on benefits. Viewers watch both short-form and FEP for: companionship, connection, learning, entertainment, FOMO.
• Not all short-form content is created equal, viewers are able to discern quality short-form content by using talent and branding for contextual cues.
• Cross-platform buys should be anchored with TV, and diversified with linear quality digital content. Digital video scales audiences beyond television.
• Short form linear content is the most efficient extension of a linear buy and delivers complimentary benefits to the viewer.
• Short-form has the potential to serve a broad audience, with the opportunity to more than double the reach of FEP alone.
• FEP content drives resonance, and can be used to build upon the efficiencies from TV and linear quality short-form content.
• Paired with network TV, short form reaches a unique audience.

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1:00 – 1:15pm Limited Interruption
Jeff C. Boehme – TV & Cross-Platform Research, Comscore
Artie Bulgrin – EVP, Strategy & Insights, MediaScience
Duane Varan – CEO, MediaScience

Summary:
Jeff C. Boehme of Comscore, and Duane Varan of MediaScience discussed the new technologies and platforms driving increased video consumption and the need to improve both the program and ad environments. This presentation analyzed consumer ad avoidance and the high cost of this avoidance. The benefits of placing ads in a limited interruption environment include increased ad effectiveness, for both aided and unaided awareness. Within a limited interruption environment, an ad is not competing with other ads for memory.

• Ad avoidance results in significant loss in audience value. Approximately 12% of commercials on linear TV are avoided (Live+3). This ad avoidance translates to approximately $7B.
• Ads in a limited interruption environment are significantly more effective in attracting higher attention, resulting in stronger brand memory. Viewer attention is a critical factor since ads cannot build memory structures if they are not processed and memory structures cannot generate sales if they are not associated with the brand.
• Viewers notice different ad loads. Ads are less avoided in a limited interruption environment. Any limited interruption is perceived as less intrusive than clutter.
• Programs enjoy higher viewership when facilitating limited interruption advertising.
• Limiting commercial interruption significantly benefits viewers, programmers and marketers.

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1:20 – 1:35pm Media Equivalence Study
Dirk Bruns – Head of Video Sales, Central Europe, Google
Andrea Malgara, Ph.D. – Managing Director & Partner, Mediaplus Group
Guido Modenbach – Managing Director, Market Intelligence, SevenOne Media

Summary:
Dirk Bruns of Google, Julia Pannicke, Ph.D., of FACIT Research, and Guido Modenbach of SevenOne Media presented their research on the impact of TV, YouTube, and Facebook video advertising.

• Under conditions of a single ad exposure: (Each participant had one single ad contact with the campaign, distributed across video platforms and advertising formats.)
  • Video creates high spontaneous ad recall.
  • Bumper ad is the strongest YouTube format in terms of unaided recall.
  • Aided recall on TV twice as strong as on Facebook.
  • The bumper ad is just as effective as pre-roll for aided ad recall.
  • For top of mind recall, TV and YouTube pre-roll are equally strong.
  • Bumpers create higher top of mind recall than other YouTube formats.
  • TV leads to the deepest processing of an ad in terms of detail recall.
  • Even short formats drive detailed recall.
• Double ad exposure: (Each participant had two ad contacts with the campaign, distributed across video platforms and advertising formats.)
  • Ad recall doubles for all formats through a second exposure.
  • Special TV formats increase unaided ad recall by up to 20%.
  • TV stronger than YouTube, YouTube pre-roll similar to TV ad break.
  • There is a cross-media effect of TV & YouTube.
  • Mixed contacts with Facebook less effective.
• The researchers summarized their insights:
  • Video advertising works across all channels.
  • Different ad formats on different platforms have different impacts.
  • Cross-media strategies can enable synergies.

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1:40 – 1:55pm Anheuser-Busch’s Approach to Win the Super Bowl
Paige Dawes – Senior Manager, Brand Insights & Strategy, Anheuser-Busch
Tyler Lewis – Director of Research, Neuro-Insight US Inc

Summary:
Paige Dawes of Anheuser-Busch and Tyler Lewis of Neuro-Insight US Inc. demonstrated how the use of neuroscience testing significantly improved the 2019 Super Bowl ad for Stella Artois. The Super Bowl is a critical opportunity for the brand to build short- and long-term brand equity in the United States. However, despite the high cost of the ads, Super Bowl viewers remember only 10% of the ads and brands.

• The 2018 Stella Artois ad did not break through, but was ranked 24th. Breaking into the top 10 was one of the goals for the brand’s Super Bowl 2019 spot.
• In a lab environment, Neuro-Insight tested the Carrie Bradshaw and the Dude commercial. Second-by-second analysis of the encoding for Stella Artois found that:
  • Brand was more acceptable to viewers through the use of celebrities.
  • Storytelling was important.
  • Messaging for the brand’s cause-related clean-water partnership with Water.org was secondary.
  • Long-term encoding showed an 86% correlations with in-market sales.
  • Nostalgia response droves effectiveness. The high points of the commercial can be used for teaser ads, social media ads.
  • Stella’s brand integrations were impactful.
• The final optimized ad successfully broke through: The Stella Artois ad was the ninth most memorable 2019 Super Bowl ad, 7.6 billion impressions, purchase frequency increased by 15.1% and the philanthropy water.org benefitted.
• There is a need to dig deeper to create winning ads:
  • Context is key.
  • Consider cultural relevancy of the context and message.
  • Create 360-degree campaign, go beyond single touch.
  • Focus on maximizing ROI.

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Video Content: Getting Programming & Ad Formats Right – Moderated Session

Jeff C. Boehme – TV & Cross-Platform Research, Comscore
Dirk Bruns – Head of Video Sales, Central Europe, Google
Rebecca Fine – Sr. Research Manager, Samba TV
Tyler Lewis – Director of Research, Neuro-Insight US Inc.
Guido Modenbach – Managing Director, Market Intelligence, SevenOne Media
Julia Pannicke, Ph.D. – Group Head, Research Consulting & Method, FACIT Research
Nicole Samrao – Research Manager, Samba TV
Moderator: Josh Chasin – Chief Measurability Officer, VideoAmp

Summary:
The following are edited highlights from the moderated discussion for the track, Video Content: Getting Programming & Ad Formats Right.

• Viewers, including children, are smarter than the media experts think and know when the commercial pod will be over.
• Where ad is located is in the pod is more important than the ad content. First position in pod is best; however, later pod in the program is better, depending on the program.
• Fewer spots work better. Media companies are realizing this finding.
• TV commercials are still very impactful.
• Strength of bumper ads was surprising.
• On all platforms, two exposures within a short time created a synergy effect, which led to stronger exposures. However, a longer time between exposures is not as effective.
• In Super Bowl ads, the actor often overshadows the brand, resulting in the high failure rates of these spots. The type of celebrities should match the context, for example, football players used in a brand commercial during a football game.
• Creative should be modified for different screens. The size of the screen, as well as the programming context, matters.
• In terms of diversity and inclusion in ads, there was a heightened neuroscience response of people of color to people like themselves in commercials.

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Getting Noticed: Understanding Human Attention

 

12:20 – 12:35pm Exploring the Multiple Dimensions of Attention to Advertising
Nicole Hartnett – Senior Marketing Scientist, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
Duane Varan – CEO, MediaScience

Summary:
Nicole Hartnett of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and Duane Varan of MediaScience discussed the research that they led on discovering robust, scalable measures of attention, specifically of attention to advertising. In this second phase of their continuing research on attention, a lab test was conducted on 30-second ads, using 12 biometric measures and signatures. Below are key findings from the study.

• Multiple measures of attention can distinguish between high attention and inattention ads.
• Attention matters. High attention ads scored better than inattention ads on a range of ad effectiveness measures (unaided brand recall, aided brand recall, brand recognition, brand choice, purchase intent).
• Multiple measures are needed understand the nuances of attention paid to ads. For instance, physiological measures did not highly correlate with each other, which shows that attention is multi-dimensional.
• The most appropriate attention measure to use may depend on what creative tactics are used in ads. Some measures proved to be more responsive to specific tactics. For instance, Heart rate went up with ads showing animals, while EEG went down when shown animals – but animals were more likely to be present in all high-attention ads.
• Attention should be used with a toolbox of different measures, especially eye tracking (fixations, blink duration, and eyes on screen), EEG, Heart rate, Facial coding (smiling).
• Next steps in the research include investigating how these measures perform when attention is distracted as per real world circumstances, and measuring attention with experiments that manipulate the presence and execution of creative tactics.

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12:40 – 12:55pm – The Role of Emotion in Human Decision Making
Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Ph.D. – Global Lead of Neuroscience, Ipsos

Summary:
There is a lack of consensus in both popular culture and in the scientific community around the meaning of emotion. To understand the true meaning of emotion as well as explore how emotion impacts decision-making, Ipsos tested over 500 ads and measured their effectiveness in creating branded memories. Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Global Lead of Neuroscience at Ipsos, shared key findings in this presentation.

• Emotion is multidimensional. Emotions are defined not simply by physiological or psychological experiences, but because we evaluate and attribute meaning to them.
• Context is key to understanding emotion. There is individuality in emotional reactions to the same event, based on context and past experiences.
• The emotional experience impacts cognition and decision-making at different levels. The measurement of emotional dimensions (valence, arousal, control) and emotional constructs (happiness, fear, anger, etc.) helps to understand consumers’ decision-making.
• Decision-making is not binary but falls along a continuum from fast and automatic to slow and deliberative (this could be seconds or even days). The prevailing narrative in the industry around decision-making is a binary one – this is false. Ipsos created a model around decision making, that includes context, goals/motivations of the individual, stimulus, etc.

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1:00 – 1:15pm How do Chinese and Australian Viewers Process Ads?
Lena Zou-Williams, Ph.D. – Centre for Cognitive Systems and Neuroscience, University of So. Australia

Summary:
Advertisers localize ads to make them more culturally relevant but which elements should be localized and what should stay the same? To answer these questions, Lena Zou-Williams from the Centre for Cognitive Systems and Neuroscience at the University of So. Australia, conducted an experiment on whether different attention processing can be impacted by culture, specifically for Chinese vs. Australian viewers.

• The experiment used 120 composite images that were culturally neutral (real-world ads could bias response), which were manipulated for emotional valence. The stimuli included objects shown in isolation and with background images. Participants included 18-30 year-olds: international Chinese students in Australia (living in a western country for no more than 18 months), and local Australians (living in an eastern culture for no more than 18 months, with both parents from a western cultural background).
• Key findings: Chinese viewers have a “holistic” tendency; preferences for “gist” processing; less sensitivity to foreground objects; weaker memory for individual elements (foreground branding); more difficulty processing isolated objects out of context.
• Implications: Use more real-estate for branding. Distinctive branding assets and potential category entry points can be advertised in the context/background as well as in the foreground of ads. Use the context. Advertisers should show information about the brand in the background context of the ad, to create a strong overall gist. Repeat information, or add to it. Advertisers could repeat the same messages in both locations, of if they are fortunate enough to have multiple unique and famous assets, they could show or two or more at the same time.

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1:20 – 1:35pm Make Noise With the Right Video Captioning
Eric Cavanaugh – SVP, Cross-Platform Marketplace Intelligence, Publicis Media
Cara Pantano – Sr. Manager, Thought Leadership, Sales Insights, Verizon Media

Summary:
Research has shown that consumers pay more attention to ads with full sound, and 74% of consumers report that sound is very important. However, seven in ten consumers are viewing videos with sound off when they are in public spaces, and nearly a quarter turn sound off in private settings. Eric Cavanaugh of Publicis Media and Cara Pantano of Verizon Media shared why optimizing video ads with captions are crucial in the current soundless environment.

• Captions can provide an alternative to sound and are becoming expected as the user base is growing beyond people with disabilities: 80% of people who use captions aren’t deaf or hard of hearing.
• Turning sound on or off is circumstantial: It depends on where you are and what you are doing. For instance, the top reasons for turning sound off are related to watching videos outside or in public spaces.
• Verizon Media and Publicis Media conducted a study to test captioning in video ads on desktop and mobile. They focused on comparing open captioning (text is burned onto the video) vs. closed captioning (the viewer can turn on/off the captions).
• Key findings: Captions increased ad and brand recall on mobile in the first six seconds: 8% lift in ad recall, 13% lift in aided brand linkage. Desktop videos with open captions had 45% lift in ad memory compared to videos with no captions. Mobile videos with open captions had 10% lift in ad memory compared with videos with no captions.
• Recommendation: Optimize ads for sound off. Design for sound off by using visual cues, over-laid text, or open-captions. Use captions tactically to enhance ad and brand recall. Practice best practices across content to reduce consumer friction.

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Getting Noticed: Understanding Human Attention – Moderated Session

Eric Cavanaugh – SVP, Cross-Platform Marketplace Intelligence, Publicis Media
Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Ph.D. – Global Lead of Neuroscience, Ipsos
Cara Pantano – Sr. Manager, Thought Leadership, Sales Insights, Verizon Media
Duane Varan – CEO, MediaScience
Moderator: Peter Sedlarcik – Chief Data Officer, Havas Media

Summary:
In this discussion for the track, Getting Noticed: Understanding Human Attention, moderator, Peter Sedlarcik of Havas Media asked the speakers for key insights that advertisers should keep in mind when targeting audiences, as well as follow-up questions on their respective presentations. Below are edited highlights from the conversation.

• Attention is very complex, and there are different types of attention. Advertisers should be most concerned with inattention, which will make ad impact suffer (and is also easier to spot). (Duane Varan, MediaScience)
• Human emotions interplay with the ad itself and with the context. Brands can best use emotions by influencing memory related to the brand. Creating and triggering emotional links are key to brand loyalty. Familiar events are effective for bottom-up attention by triggering emotions stored in memory. But it’s risky to trigger high emotional arousal as you want to make sure that the valence of that emotion is positive, not negative. (Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Ipsos)
• For video ads, use open captioning as best practice since viewers are unlikely to see the “cc” (closed captioning) button for ads. Make sure that captioning does not cover graphics and is easy to read across different video players (ideal is 50% opacity). Avoid having too many elements in the ad; it can be too distracting. Never rely on automatic speech-recognition – always double-check. (Cara Pantano, Verizon Media)
• Just do captioning – it’s almost all upside. As mobile usage increases, it’s increasingly in a soundless environment. (Eric Cavanaugh, Publicis Media)

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2:35 – 2:55pm – THE LAST WORD
Barb Murrer – VP, Marketplace Insights, Levi Strauss & Co.
Elizabeth Tarpinian – Consumer Market & Insight, Senior Director, Unilever NA
Mark Truss – Chief Research Officer, Wunderman Thompson
Moderator: Stephen DiMarco – Chief Digital Officer, Kantar

Summary:
This “last word” session, moderated by Stephen DiMarco, Chief Digital Officer of Kantar, helped close out the conference with final thoughts from the panelists on content that best resonated with them, as well as topics that they wanted to explore further. Below are edited highlights from the conversation.

• Themes on diversity and cultural relevance resonated strongly and need to be discussed further. Liz Tarpinian, Consumer Market & Insight, Senior Director at Unilever NA, noted that even as North America is becoming more diverse and fragmented, we haven’t talked enough about it. Stephen added that it’s about equality and justice, and unbiased advertising during the entire workflow, from casting to the teams that you select.
• “Data alchemy is the future of our business,” according to Mark Truss, CRO of Wunderman Thompson. He wanted to learn more about identity resolution as well as learn how to make cross-channel attribution work. Liz questioned how ready the industry was for the cookie-less future, and what impact it will have on research quality.
• How do you balance pressures for short-term sales with longer-term brand building? Mark observed that it is a false dichotomy to do one or the other. It’s the right balance for your brand, at this time, given your competition – you can do both. He pointed out that Abby Mehta’s Bank of America presentation (“Why Driving a Strong Brand Still Matters”) showed the (business impact of) brand equity on performance. Barb Murrer, VP of Marketplace Insights at Levi Strauss & Co., noted that your CMO and marketing teams need to understand this. You have to think about your brand health in the long run. Liz agreed that even though Unilever has a shorter cycle, “we are in it for the long-run.” She advised that if you are authentic, the sales will be there. She has seen that “brands with strong purpose, have the strongest growth even short-term.”
• Telescope vs. Microscope. Stephen closed out the conversation by posing this intriguing question to the panelists on whether they would rather have a telescope or a microscope – to help look far ahead or more granularly now. Barb answered that the bigger picture is the more important thing. Since there is so much uncertainty right now, the telescope is preferred. Liz chose the microscope, even though she wants both. She sees the big themes already manifesting (e.g., environment under stress, the digital revolution, the polarization of the world), but struggles on the audience and context. Mark also picked the microscope. He feels that since so much is changing too fast, he worries he may miss something if he looks too far out – he “may miss the why.”

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2:55 – 3:00pm – CLOSING REMARKS – Scott McDonald, Ph.D. – CEO and President, ARF