Re!Think 2016

Advertising Budgeting: Where’s the Evidence?

• Posted: April 4, 2016

Dr. Rachel Kennedy, Ph.D. – Associate Professor, Ehrenberg Bass Institute

Comparing budgets from competing methods for a variety of categories revealed that different approaches led to significantly different budgets. The key insights from this study are provided.

• Not all budgeting approaches are equal. Different budget approaches give different answers.

• “Be evidence-based in selecting approaches to use.”

• Combine key approaches. The authors recommend combining heuristics with algorithmic approaches, and considering both internally- and externally-focused perspectives.

 

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Seeking the Moment of Ad Impact

• Posted: April 4, 2016

Nathalie Bordes – Senior Director, Emerging Channels Research, ESPN

Dr. Duane Varan, Ph.D. – CEO, MediaScience

 

This study used eye tracking to pinpoint the moment of ad exposure.

Viewability, an MRC standard, can be defined as “Is my ad in a prominent place so it can be seen by my targeted audience?”

Do desktop and mobile impressions require different exposures to be “seen”?

Controlled exposure, time to see, how quickly eye gaze intersects with the ad, how quickly visual fixation occurs, and memory are all affected at different exposure times. Each image was on screen for intervals between 500 and 4,000 milliseconds, or eight thresholds.

How is memory impacted by the different thresholds for exposure?

• The eye gaze occurred at the .5 second mark.
• It was present for both scrolling and static exposure.

Mobile scrolling produced higher results than the PC.

• Even at .5 second, there is 36% recall.
• At 4 seconds, there is 80% recall.

Conclusions:

• Mobile doesn’t require longer exposure time. Mobile actually requires less. Scrolling ad environments also do not need more exposure.

• Ad recall already happens at .5 seconds.

• There is a real ongoing need for further dialogue (time threshold)

• How does creative play into this? Creative is crucial for ad impact, but not necessarily for the gaze or fixation.

 

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Evaluating TV Effectiveness

• Posted: April 4, 2016

Olga Casabona – Senior Director, Client Insights, Turner

Isaac Weber – VP, Strategy, MarketShare

Ad dollars are shifting from TV to online due to the latter’s perceived higher efficiency. But TV’s problem isn’t effectiveness, it’s measurement. The research aimed to help marketers better understand media effectiveness, in order to maximize sales and ROI.

Media mix models from over 500 brands were analyzed, including actual market observations. A holistic model encompassing paid, owned, earned, controllable and non-controllable was developed that measures direct and indirect impacts on media. Key findings are as follows:

• Even with the explosion of digital media, “TV remains the most effective advertising medium representing the highest impact on sales.” TV was also found to drive the largest indirect impact through organic search and web activity.

• “Media mix matters. Optimizing TV spend with high-frequency consumer interaction data translates into significant increases in sales.

• Premium content also matters. Premium TV online video significantly outperforms other publishers’ video content.” Despite the lower amount of impressions, premium content drives higher ROI.

Implications for marketers:

• “Consider the strength of TV’s effectiveness across categories.”

• “Leverage TV’s synergistic impact on other marketing vehicles.”

• “Recognize the “need for consistent, adequate, and optimally-timed TV.”

 

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The Retentive Impact of Mass & Digital Advertising

• Posted: April 4, 2016

Charlie Hinton – Executive Director, Marketing Analytics, AT&T Mobility

Gregory Pharo – Director, Marketing and Research, AT&T Mobility

This study used marketing mix modeling techniques to measure the impact of each major media channel in reducing customer churn. New data sets such as product/service quality, customer care, and other customer information were incorporated into the model.

Results suggest that:

• While quality of products and services was the most significant churn tactic, media also has a retentive impact.

• TV, digital media, and direct marketing are critical.

• Significantly, ad quality matters more for customer retention than it does for driving sales.

 

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Deconstructing Branded Content

• Posted: April 4, 2016

Jess Halter – Senior Research Analyst, IPG Media Lab

Kara Manatt – VP, Consumer Research Strategy, IPG Media Lab

Branded content is very effective, and it’s even more effective than traditional video ads. They looked at the best practices for creating branded content and deploying it. They worked with 50 brands across 19 industry verticals. “We surveyed 14,780 people to learn what branded content is across the globe, how to deploy it, and what to take into account when creating it.”

The first thing they needed to do was come up with a working definition of branded content: “content that lives on its own, produced by and for the brand, as opposed to content produced by someone else than the brand affixes itself to.”

They recruited participants in 10 different countries and randomized them into a single test cell.

• Control (stand-alone content with no brand mentions)
• Standard Video ad
• Branded content

“We conducted a broad and deep test,” said Manatt. First they wondered, “Do consumers even know the difference between branded content and traditional video ads?”

They created a Content Marketing Score. Participants were asked to rate the video (scored 13%). People see branded content differently—and consider it to be less a form of traditional advertising than traditional video ads. This was a prevailing attitude in Asia, Europe, and Latin America but not the Middle East.

How is branded content different?

Both standard video ads and branded content were considered marketing, but branded content was viewed differently and seen as more entertaining, uplifting, educational, novel and exciting.

Consumers view branded content differently from traditional marketing, and are more likely to characterize branded content in one of the many forms it can take, such as a how-to video, a sponsored show, a brand promotion or entertainment.

How do you optimize branded content?

Branded content was created with the consumer mind-set and provides what consumers want and need to hear. “When you’re providing education to consumers,” said Manatt, “it also makes them think more favorably about your brand.”

How branded content is perceived by country:

• Europe: Provide relevant information
• Asia: All about exciting content
• Latin American: Inform with humor
• Middle East: Difficult to move purchase intent. It’s a less mature market.

Their advice? “Make that connection with your brand really strong.” Even though content with high branding was perceived as a product pitch, it was still considered more informative and equally trustworthy. Branded content inspired a level of trust.

They encouraged brands to try a lot of different strategies:

1. Spend the extra money to make high quality content—it’s worth it.
2. Don’t be afraid to incorporate branding, especially for high consideration brands.
3. Branded content is more than providing entertainment. Provide valuable information to your consumers.
4. Location, location, location. Place content on premium sites.

 

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The Advertising Research Foundation Reveals Groundbreaking Research: How Advertising Works Today

• Posted: March 23, 2016

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) announced the findings from its How Advertising Works research, based on over 5000 campaigns, 12 years of data, and $375B in advertising spend in 41 countries across over 100 categories.  

This study, independently conducted by the ARF, was sponsored and supported by over 25 contributing companies including ESPN, MediaScience, Neuro-Insight, Analytic Partners, Unilever, Kellogg, Levi Strauss, Nissan, Starcom Mediavest, CBS, Facebook, Google, Marketing Evolution, Millward Brown, iHeartMedia, Meredith, Nielsen, and comScore. There has not been a study done to this scale and depth in over 25 years.

Groundbreaking insights are highlighted:

• Marketers may be starving off growth by not investing enough in advertising as they shift the mix from traditional to new platforms, missing the opportunity to generate billions in additional return.
• Spending across multiple platforms delivers greater ROI than any single platform – including for Millennial consumers.
• “Silo-investing” – too much frequency via a single platform can lead to diminishing returns.
• To jumpstart growth marketers can take advantage of the “kicker effect” of smart spending with specific combinations of traditional plus new media on the right platforms.
• A unified creative strategy across platforms is key to compound the investment of a multi-platform campaign, but unified creative executions also need to be specifically tailored to each platform to ensure optimal consumer engagement.

Gayle Fuguitt, CEO and President of the ARF said, “We are pleased to lead this important initiative that brings scientific proof, measured opportunities and a roadmap for growth to the industry at C-suite speed and scale.”

 

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Measuring Influence: Going Beyond Business and Brand Metrics to Inspire Work with Real World Impact

• Posted: March 23, 2016

Gayle Fuguitt, CEO & President, The ARF, introduced Jonny Bauer – Global Chief Strategy Officer, Droga5

Jonny Bauer spoke on strategy and measuring influence: “Metrics shouldn’t just measure. Metrics should inspire creativity and action.” He called for “advertising that creates value rather than clutter.”

“Our goal is effectiveness. Our strategy is influence. We define influence as the capacity of power to be a compelling force.”

To that end, the influence metric can be defined as “What real world impact are we going to have?”

What is an influence metric? “Something that we want to change in the real world. Something that goes beyond any business or brand metrics.”

Jonny showed case history videos on:

PRUDENTIAL

The Influence metric in this case was for people to put “more money in retirement accounts.”

Prudential’s goal was to portray the real face of retirement. Position retirement as a fresh start.

Prudential asked: Why aren’t people better prepared? The brain gets involved in the way of planning for retirement. “The retirement challenge” showed Prudential there was a need to educate, inspire and encourage consumers to save 1% more with a pledge.

The consumer became involved in creating the campaign.

TOYOTA

Influence metric: “Make hydrogen fuel like the no brainer future of propulsion.”

They touted hydrogen fuel as the future of propulsion, as an alternative for fossil fuel.

“We needed to tap into the availability but also the abundance of hydrogen. To change the public perception of hydrogen.”

We were going for “Real world influence. Real world impact.”

The new hydrogen fuel car, Mirai, had successful sales and changed public opinion.

NEWCASTLE ALE

Influence metric: “Make people demand more from beer advertising.”

People really hate beer advertising. They find it unrelatable.

They approached the task with humor. As Anna Kendrick said, “They wanted to make a commercial about how they couldn’t afford to make a commercial.” They created a video with a storyboard for a fake Super Bowl ad. It became known as The Super Bowl Ad that could have been: “If WE Made It.”

It achieved 600 organic media placements with 10 million views in 2 weeks, made every major media outlets’ top 10 list of commercials.

The moral of the story: You don’t have to be in the big game to win the big game.

CLINTON FOUNDATION video on “No Ceilings Report”

Influence metric: More inequality protests.

What to do when you have a lot of data, and a million stats on how gender equality has not been achieved. How do you motivate young people to learn the statistics of the report and be willing to take action?

The problem was that young people did not believe in gender inequality. “We’re not there yet.” Remove women from the media and replace it with notthere.org

Covers were blank. Women disappeared from the cover of magazines and billboard displays, avatars on social media.

It was the #1 trending campaign on International Women’s Day.

“We’re not there yet but together we can be.”—Chelsea Clinton

 

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Data Pioneers of Change

• Posted: March 23, 2016

Brian Wong – Co-Founder & CEO, Kiip

Doug Ziewacz – Head, NA Digital Media & Advertising, Under Armour Connected Fitness

Moderator: Gayle Fuguitt – CEO & President, The ARF

Gayle Fuguitt introduced these Data Pioneers of Change: Brian Wong and Doug Ziewacz for a panel discussion. What was important at SXSW: Brian spoke about the presence of brands and the theme of interconnectedness of devices, and brands rewarding consumer behavior. It is happening worldwide.

Doug confirmed the importance of interconnectedness. Both confirmed that this is happening rapidly.

Gayle asked panelists how to unlock funds for experimentation:

Doug stated that Under Armour looks for constant innovation and stresses the importance of data, analytics and insights. All companies need to have a long-term vision.

Brian stated that his lack of experience in the media business actually served as a positive for him. He encouraged brands to interact with consumers, advertising alone is not enough. Consumer data from the inter-connected devices will create opportunities for brands. But brands have to be responsible with this personal data.

Cool moments can come from these connected devices.

“It’s no longer good enough to give a consumer 10,000 steps.” You have to look at it from every angle –nutrition, sleep, system.

“Everyone’s connected,” said Brian. “The thing we’ve seen now is this hyper-adoption. How quickly people are going to take this stuff up.”

“In those moments a brand should be able to reward you, not just advertise to you.”

“We used to use content as the proxy. You might have been using Men’s Health before, but why not reach them as they just finish a run?”

By networking, all these new data points come together.

The trio talked about the notion of Try fast, fail fast, succeed fast.

Gayle Fuguitt: “How do you unlock funds for experimentation and growth? We know the money is there.”

Doug Ziewacz: “20 years ago innovation was a cotton T-shirt, and today’s it’s data. If we have this mission of making athletes better, we really need a way to demonstrate that.”

Brian Wong: Kickstart encouraging brands to interact with consumers in a different way.

These moments that indicated ME! “Google became the most important company in the world because they could find out what you wanted and that was so available just using search.”

“Going to the fridge. These signals are all need-states. That’s the next frontier. We think there will be billions of data points every minute, every second.”

Brian spoke about his upcoming book, THE CHEAT CODE. “These are codes in games and in life, that will help you tweak your process.”

Gayle asked about their perspective on failure. As entrepreneurs, both have had this experience.

Brian talked about being laid off at the ripe old age of 19 when he worked for a competitor to Reddit called Digg.

Doug said, “We failed at everything we could. And we tested. So we could succeed now.”

But he noted that success doesn’t have to come from quick failure. There are many different ways to arrive at success, at the same place.

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Head and Heart: Making Sense of Multicultural Mindsets

• Posted: March 23, 2016

Monique L. Nelson – Chairman & CEO, UWG

Jeff Yang – SVP, Consulting Services, The Futures Company

Introduced by: Colleen Fahey Rush – EVP & CRO, Viacom Media Networks; ARF Board Member

The panel discussed a Marine Corps recruitment campaign targeting second generation Asian-Americans. The campaign was developed by UWG.  

Culture is a factor in decision-making.

Both rational and emotional reasons for becoming a Marine were analyzed. Emotion and rationality were considered as part of researching key areas that shape multicultural mindsets.

Explore the interplay between rational (tangible benefits) and emotional (intangible benefits) mindsets in the multicultural consumer.

They showed a recruitment video for the Marines called “A Warrior’s Education.”

The creative spoke to second-generation Asian Americans who experience a feeling of cultural displacement with their families and in American culture. These individuals stand within two worlds, and have a flexible sense of identity.

These two mindsets are not necessarily exclusive. They can run concurrently.

The decision to become a Marine is extremely engaged. Depending on culture, there are different tendencies operating. These individuals can use code-switching to fit in the majority environments, but also to stand out in these environments. They need to be able to adapt and function in sharply different cultural realities.

In the same way, multicultural consumers alternate in behavior but also in mindset. They tend to “think in color” in emotionally charged contexts.

• Younger consumers tend to be more engaged, while older consumers are more habitual.
• Hispanic, African-American, Asian-Americans are more engaged while non-Hispanic whites are more likely to be habitual.

Emotion and rationality are always at play in decision-making, all the time.

Marketing to multicultural consumers acknowledges the fluidity of their identity. They will have a rational consideration but the emotional connection is what makes their final decision.

In “A Warrior’s Education,” you see authentic storytelling about 1st Lt. David Pham, a Marine from a similar background. The videos were watched exclusively on Facebook and supported on marines.com.

The first video outlined the concept of self-discipline. The second video shows the importance of “respect” and love in leadership. The creative leverages content for the head and heart and is tailored to this particular group.

Appeal to the dual connection that involves their thinking processes and emotional drive.

Find the common ground between groups, take a universal approach, and find the “sweet spot” to make your appeal even stronger. Family is one of the cultural touchstones for Asian Americans that was leveraged the videos. These spots scored high for rationality and emotionality.

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Altruism is Good Business

• Posted: March 23, 2016

John Osborn – CEO, BBDO NY

Rob Biederman – Co-Founder & CEO, HourlyNerd

Jeff Buchan – Associate Manager, Global Industry Relations, Google; ARF Board Member

Moderator: Steven Wolfe Pereira – VP, Brand Strategy & Marketing Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud; ARF Board Member

Jeff Buchan, Google: “Companies, especially companies hiring Millennials, want to do cool things that matter.”

“Altruism has to be integrated. It can’t be an afterthought. People want to understand the values of a company.” He outlined Google’s mission: To empower people by connecting them to information. This has led to the development of driverless cars, smart contact lenses for diabetes patients, and so forth. “People want to make an impact and have work imbued with meaning.”

John Osborne, President & CEO, BBDO NY: “Altruism is a conscious choice you make. You either do it or you don’t. It’s intrinsic and integral to all of our clients.” It’s not enough to want to do good, you have to pay attention to how it’s done. “Altruism is not just for non-profits anymore.” The majority of the world is driven by innate, emotional desires.

Rob Biederman, Co-Founder & CEO of HourlyNerd, defined the company as a marketplace with 20,000 business consultants.

“For a new generation of consumers, the assumption is that the product is going to work.” It’s not driven by product differences. “They also want to see some personally relevant mission.”

John Osborne: Altruism is also a recruiting tool. Potential sources of the next wave of employees.

A lot of our companies are actually talking directly to millennials, whether they’re on a panel or they’re employed in the workforce.

Steven Wolfe Pereira, VP, Oracle Data Cloud: “The millennial profile is increasingly a multicultural one. Over 50% of all millennials will be of black, Latino, and Asian descent.”

More brands are becoming B-corporations than ever—Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, Etsy, Unilever is looking to do it.

Rob Biederman defines altruism as “to have a deeper mission that is legally part of your contract.”

John Osborn: “70% of millennials are willing to pay more for a brand that’s doing good for the world.”

People are willing to switch brands, so long as the brand is providing something substantive to the social agenda of making the world a better place.

Brands are reformulating products—making them more authentic, their ingredients more organic.

Steven Wolfe Pereira: “Doing good is good for business.”

Jeff Buchan tweaked the Spiderman theme: “With great innovation comes great responsibility.”

How can we use our capabilities for social good? Reflect on what it is you do best, and then figure out how you can use that for the greater good, whether it’s mobilizing after a natural disaster or increasing voter turnout.

Steven Wolfe Pereira: “Use your business for a force of good.”

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