News You Can Use

Facebook Says People are OK with Video Ads that Interrupt Content, As Long As They Are Short

• Posted: January 10, 2018

According to Facebook no two formats are equal in terms of effectiveness. “These days people talk a lot about the second screen, but it’s not clear anymore which screen we’re talking about,” said Mark Rabkin, Facebook’s VP of Ads and Business Platform. That reality means that advertisers need to measure different ad formats differently.

People’s attention wanes the fastest in feeds, like on Facebook or Twitter, since an ad is merely one piece of content among many – so the bar for capturing attention is high. But feeds are likely to help forge deeper connections if an ad quickly communicates a message or grabs people’s attention, says Facebook, offering massive scale and reach.

According to Facebook, most people are comfortable with pre-roll and mid-roll video ads they can’t skip, as long as the videos aren’t too long.

A majority of people watch such ads until completion; more than 70% do so for Facebook’s own midroll ads. Facebook says that advertisers can take advantage of these high completion rates by getting to the point quickly: 6-seconds and 15-seconds are emerging as standards for video ads, says the company’s research.

As for unskippable ads, people have become accustomed on tapping on the skip-button as soon as it pops us and zapping through the creative. So, advertisers should consider the first five seconds, what Facebook calls the “pre-skip portion” as an independent high-reach ad placement, and focus on the rest to provide more information to people who have demonstrated their interest.

Facebook, for its part, is urging advertisers to rethink mobile advertising, by pushing out shorter, more attention-grabbing ads in a variety of different creative formats.

 

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Dua, T. (2018, January 5). Facebook Says People are OK with Video Ads that Interrupt Content, as Long as They Are Short. Business Insider.

Rethinking the Profession Formerly Known as Advertising: How Data Science Is Disrupting the Work of Agencies

• Posted: January 5, 2018

Editor’s Note: “Speaker’s Box” in the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR) invites academics and practitioners to identify potential areas of research affecting marketing and advertising. Its intention is to bridge the gap between the length of time it takes to produce rigorous work and the acceleration of change within practice. With this contribution, John Deighton shows how data technology sits within its industry. He depicts this industry as a supply chain and shows how a small number of firms have defied the chain metaphor to integrate all the way from data source to data application.

These integrators, he argues, are titans in a battle to create the dominant design for a platform on which all marketing will be practiced. But, he asks, who will do the work of marketing? Will it be done by an evolved version of the advertising agency; will it be institutionalized into the culture of data science; or will it not be professionalized at all, but rather defer to one or more standard-setting industrialists, perhaps Google or Amazon? Here are a few excerpts from this article:

There is nothing new about the claim that advertising is not what it used to be. In 2012, the annual report of WPP noted, “We are applying more and more technology to our business, along with big data. We are now Math Men as well as Mad Men (and Women). Thus, we go head-to-head not only with advertising and market research groups such as Omnicom, IPG, Publicis, Dentsu, Havas, Nielsen, Ipsos, and GfK, but also new technology companies—such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Amazon—and then with technology consulting companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and Deloitte.”

At a minimum, it must be clear that a profession that changed hardly at all in the 70-odd years since the commercialization of television is not recognizably that profession any longer. By all that defines a profession—skills, assets, clients, and heritage—it is time to declare a new regime.

When a new technology is born, nothing is more certain than that it will be deployed, whether for good or for evil, and data science will not be an exception. We will receive its benefits, and we will learn to live in and around its costs. But what role will the institutions and people of the advertising profession play in the emerging practice of data-driven marketing communications and customer management?

Deighton, J. (2017, December 1). Rethinking the Profession Formerly Known as Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research.

The State of Programmatic Media Buying: New ANA Research

• Posted: January 5, 2018

ANA’s Group EVP, Bill Duggan, shares key findings from an ANA whitepaper on the state of programmatic media buying.

The recent ANA white paper is based on 149 ANA member respondents. A great majority (85 percent) stated that their company is currently conducting programmatic initiatives.

Key findings among those conducting programmatic:

• The top cited benefits of programmatic buying are better audience targeting, the ability to build audience reach, and real-time optimization.
• A large majority (78 percent) of respondents are either concerned or very concerned about brand safety issues in programmatic buying.
• 35 percent have reduced the role of external agency(ies) as a result of the expansion of their in-house capabilities for programmatic buying.
• Only 40 percent of respondents are comfortable or very comfortable about the transparency they receive with their programmatic media investments. A third are uncomfortable or very uncomfortable, citing factors such as hidden costs, too many middlemen, and uncertainty on where ads actually run.
• The ANA is aware that many marketers have made changes to programmatic buying practices to address media transparency concerns, and, specifically, fewer marketers are now opting in to undisclosed programmatic deals.

The report provides a number of recommendations including: build internal expertise, own the data and knowledge, and understand the tradeoffs of an undisclosed programmatic model.

Duggan, B. (2017, December 19). The State of Programmatic Media Buying: New ANA Research. ANA.

An Ad Agency is Trying to ‘Standardize the Wild West of Social Media’ After a Year of Brand Safety Blow-ups

• Posted: January 5, 2018

According to Mike Shields, Advertising Editor with Business Insider, the ad-buying firm OMD has partnered with the data tech firm Influential to develop a way to grade social-media influencers (by creating I-Score). The partnership is the latest move by ad agencies looking to get out in front of the ongoing digital brand safety issue.

The idea behind I-Score is to help prospective advertisers figure out which digital creators will best represent them — and not put them in a compromising position. I-Score is meant to serve as a digital equivalent to the Q Score, long used to gauge the likeability and popularity of Hollywood stars.

To figure out which influencers are performing well, I-Score relies on publicly available social data (such as shares and YouTube views) and Influential’s proprietary machine-learning tool, which borrows some artificial-intelligence technology from IBM Watson.

Of course, Influential is hardly the only company out there promising to help ad buyers sift through the vast world of digital talent who have built big followings on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and other places. Many of these middlemen say they can score influencers using a compilation of data.

And, of course, there’s no telling when a normally mild-mannered social influencer might decide to go rogue and produce a controversial post.

Shields, M. (2017, December 18). An Ad Agency is Trying to ‘Standardize the Wild West of Social Media’ After a Year of Brand Safety Blow-ups. The Business Insider.

Mobility Rate Falls to New Low

• Posted: January 5, 2018

Cheryl Russell, Editorial Director, New Strategist Press, reports on demographic trends from the American Consumers Newsletter. Below are a few selected statistics from the newsletter:

Mobility Rate Falls to New Low – The geographic mobility rate fell to a new all-time low in 2017, according to the Census Bureau. Only 11.0 percent of U.S. residents aged 1 or older as of March 2017 had moved in the previous 12 months. Not since 1960 have so few people moved (35 million).

Another New Low: Households with Kids – Only 27.2 percent of the nation’s households in 2017 included children under age 18, according to the Census Bureau–a new record low. Here is the trend since 1960…

Households with own children under age 18
2017: 27.2%
2010: 30.0%
2000: 33.0%
1990: 34.6%
1980: 38.4%
1970: 45.4%
1960: 48.7%

Russell, C. (2017, December). Mobility Rate Falls to New Low in 2016. American Consumers Newsletter.

IN BRIEF

• Posted: January 5, 2018

• Branded content partnerships continue to grow in popularity, with advertisers allocating larger budgets towards the practice. This year, we saw an increased focus on inspirational content, which could be one of the factors that has led to an increase in audience attention. AdAge.
• According to the company Hiya, a leader in phone spam protection, unwanted calls to U.S. consumers overall have increased by 76% in 2017, up from over 10 billion last year. MediaPost.
• Below are the ten most widely read print magazines in 2017, according to MRI’s issue-by-issue data:
  1. AARP The Magazine: 38.3 million
  2. People: 37.9 million
  3. Better Homes and Gardens: 35.6 million
  4. National Geographic: 30.6 million
  5. The Costco Connection: 25.8 million
  6. Good Housekeeping: 19.2 million
  7. Reader’s Digest: 17.6 million
  8. Time: 17.2 million
  9. Sports Illustrated: 16.6 million
  10. Southern Living: 15.7 million
• Folio:.

ARF Women in Analytics: Gender Equality: Your Career, Your Future

• Posted: December 20, 2017

Despite progress, women are still underrepresented in senior management. In fact, in corporate America, women fall behind early and keep losing ground with every step.

Why? Key reasons include women being blocked from:

Participating in meaningful meetings,
Receiving challenging assignments,
Having access to senior leaders.
The result?

Women are less likely to receive the first critical promotion to manager,
Fewer women ending up on a senior path.
Why should companies care? More gender diversity in the workforce will lead to stronger organizations, and that’s good for employees as well as for companies.

Click on the link to view the 4-minute video featuring comments from several speakers: Women in Analytics.

Event program featured:

• Shelley Zalis (CEO, The Female Quotient), on gender equality in advertising.
• Jane Clarke (Managing Partner, CIMM) and Mary Ann Packo (CEO, Kantar Gold Rush), on the role of women pioneers in the workplace.
• Lynnette Cooke (Global CEO, Kantar Health), “Early in my career they would ask me to scribe and take notes or go to the easel. The excuse was that you because of your handwriting was so much better! Later on it was easy to just say ‘no.'”
• Lorraine Hack (Partner, Heidrick & Struggles), “Expand your network … go broader because that’s when you increase your perspective, and perhaps a chance for another job …”

The Value of Media Environment in Engaging Digital Display Audiences

• Posted: December 20, 2017

Editor’s Note: This paper from David Bassett and Mike Follett from Lumen Research was selected as Best Paper at the 2017 PDRF (Publishing and Data Research Forum) international conference in Madrid.

At the 2015 PDRF conference, along with Andrew Green (IPSOS), David Bassett (Lumen Research) presented findings on attention to print advertising from our paper Engagement as Visual Attention: A New Story for Publishers. Drawing on eye-tracking data collected from Lumen’s weekly press omnibus, Lumen Research presented statistics on the typical levels of attention Press ads achieve, highlighted the role editorial plays in delivering attention for advertisers, and went on to argue that the emerging scalability of eye-tracking provides a good option for measuring the thorny concept of reader engagement.

In this year’s paper, Bassett updated the conference with some new data Lumen has collected on attention to digital advertising together with our partners Aimia.

As the data accumulates though, there is one overwhelming conclusion of pivotal significance for both publishers and advertisers: media environment is critical to engaging audiences with advertising—and to an extent often overlooked and undervalued by current media markets.

The Reality of Digital Ad Attention: Cutting Through is Tough. The headline stats on attention to display advertising are sobering. It’s well known that digital advertising has viewability issues, with only around half of banner ads meeting the IAB standard of 50% of the ad being in view for at least 1 second. What is less well appreciated is that viewability far from guarantees attention. Over all the ad impressions we have recorded among our panelists, 66% of them were “viewable”. But among these, only 18% were noticed at all; 82% were completely missed, not recording a single moment when the user’s eyes were fixated on them. Overall, that means only 12% of all impressions are actually seen.

It’s worth contrasting this with data on press. Here, there are much higher levels of attention, with 73% of “viewable” ads being seen (in the sense that 73% of ads are seen when people are reading the double page spread with the ad on). Not only are digital display impressions less likely to be viewed than press, but the dwell times people spend with the advertising is also lower. Lumen Research newspaper data shows that on average people spend 2.2 seconds looking at Press Ads, around which there is a large variation. 41% of viewable press ads are seen for a least a second, with 7% seen for more than 5 seconds. That might not sound like a huge amount, but it is much higher than we see for digital display, where the average dwell time is just 1.2 seconds.

A quick look at advertising in context across these channels is also instructive. Compare the following images and it’s easy to see why digital display advertising is usually less noticed than press (see the examples in the link). Press ads are just much bigger things, and not so easy to put out of view. Another factor is less obvious: Press ads “load” at the same time as the content, whereas digital ads experience latency.

Bassett, D. (2017, December). The Value of Media Environment in Engaging Digital Display Audiences. Publishing and Data Research Forum.

The Celebrity Power of Music in Advertisements

• Posted: December 20, 2017

Dr. Bradly Vines, Director Neuroscience Europe at Nielsen writes that influencer marketing is one of the industry’s trendy flavors. Connecting consumers with brands through the voices (and images and videos) of celebrities. Or through anyone with influence. Our recent research, however, reveals that there’s an old-school component to ads that acts much like an influencer: music.

Neuroscience shows us that, when used correctly, music can put viewers and listeners in a more positive mood, leading to a greater reliance on intuition and a reduction in both critical thought and focus on detail. This “fluid processing” is an ideal state of mind for processing advertising that brands should be seeking when communicating with consumers.

The familiarity that consumers feel with some music also helps to engage memory frameworks, bringing to the brand familiar and positive associations already in place in the minds of consumers. Of course, not all familiarity is positive familiarity. The wrong music can trigger associations that are not in line with core brand values and can overshadow the brand if it is the wrong song, or it may even date the communication.

A value, like trust, can be difficult to communicate and measure with traditional research tools. Much of the perception of trust is nonconscious, so measuring it accurately can only be derived with technology that can measure the nonconscious impact.

It’s no secret that music licenses can be expensive. Brands, of course, want to know whether such an investment will be worth the return. Another client, this time one of our beverage clients, wanted to test such a scenario. In short, would a well-known pop song be worth significantly greater investment than a song created just for the ad? It was a quarter-million-dollar question for the brand team.

Using the tools of neuroscience, Vines found that the pop song increased attention, emotion and memory by 20 percent. Additionally, the neurological wear-in score showed that the pop song delivered a significant increase in effectiveness over multiple viewings, meaning that consumers engaged more with the ad the more they viewed and heard it. In Vines’ experience, this is a difficult feat to accomplish!

The important takeaway is that every situation, every ad and every brand is different. Our brains will react differently to different songs in different contextual environments. But only when you can access this deep layer of thinking can you truly understand – how does sound influence us? And that is a question worth answering.

Source: Vines, B., Dr. (2017, November 29). The Celebrity Power of Music in Advertisements. Nielsen.

Adweek Presents: Great Advertising in Print and Outdoor in 2017

• Posted: December 20, 2017

Editor’s Note: Two articles from Adweek and Dropbox featuring “Best of 2017” creative, showing examples and commentary on these exemplary ads. Both are from Tim Nudd, creative editor of Adweek and editor of AdFreak, Adweek’s daily blog.

Nudd, T. (2017, December 13). Print Isn’t Dead! These 7 Great Ads Showed the Medium at Its Best in 2017. Adweek.

Nudd, T. (2017, December 14). 13 Brilliant Outdoor Ads That Stopped People in Their Tracks in 2017. Adweek.