Managing business risk involves having a rational, data-driven view of the future while simultaneously being as prepared as possible for external shocks — from a global pandemic and the ensuing supply-chain disruptions, to inflation, data signal losses, war, and great power competition. At our annual Forecasting event, held virtually on July 18, leading experts shared how businesses can adapt forecasting techniques to manage risk.
Managing business risk involves having a rational, data-driven view of the future while simultaneously being as prepared as possible for external shocks — from a global pandemic and the ensuing supply-chain disruptions, to inflation, data signal losses, war, and great power competition. At our annual Forecasting event, held virtually on July 18, leading experts shared how businesses can adapt forecasting techniques to manage risk.
There have been dramatic changes in loyalty due to the pandemic, requiring a re-examination of the measures of loyalty, churn, and the value of new vs. loyal buyers. NCSolutions analyzed why it is important to compare loyalty measures longitudinally to gauge a brand’s health, as well as to understand which advertising and promotional strategies have been successful and to determine whether to focus on driving penetration or brand loyalty.
In this session, Chris McCarthy of Kantar addressed the question: “In today’s environment of constant, dynamic change, how can brands enhance how they innovate and engage with audiences?” The speaker examined the “age of disruption,” noting consumer obstacles such as COVID supply chain shortages and inflation leading to a shift to higher-involvement decisions by consumers, which has resulted in some risks but also opportunities for brands. The speaker pointed to tension hunting, the process of enhancing innovation and success by focusing on the mitigation of problems, as a way to address disruption and consumer inertia, head-on.
This MESH Experience webcast focused on how marketers can grow their business and succeed in the new age of customer experience (CX). Experts at Axa Investment Managers and Cox Communications discussed how to build a CX roadmap in the current consumer climate. Attendees were given a toolkit to grow their brand and gained an understanding of how to meet and exceed the demands of their current and prospective customers.
On October 11, 2022, Stephanie Scalice, Winner of the 2022 ARF Great Mind Awards Young Pro of the Year Award and Senior Market Research Manager at LinkedIn, led the ARF Young Pros through a deep dive into NPS, CSAT and CES—the three most used metrics by modern businesses to better measure and understand customer satisfaction. Attendees learned more about what each metric is, when and how to implement it, real life applications of these tools and more.
Dana Sparber of NBCUniversal unveiled the results of an online survey investigating inflation and the multicultural shopper. It was conducted using a Numerator panel in Q4 of 2022. Among the 7,000 surveyed were a mix of Asian, black and Hispanic shoppers, all adults +18, half men and half women. These consumers had all bought items in the categories of grocery, health and wellness, beauty, household products, non-alcoholic beverages and electronics. The study not only looked at online shopping but in-store and bodega sales—an important aspect often missed. Multicultural consumers across the board and regardless of household income had a much sunnier view of the state of inflation and were far more likely to say they would continue their normal spending habits. All projected the common theme of resiliency.
Across all platforms, creative continues to have the dominant effect ranging from 46% to 49% of the effect of the campaign. The proportional effect of media and brand vary by platform depending on the targetability of the medium, the ability to build reach and the appeal to younger audiences such as is the case for social media.
In this session, Tania Yuki and Brian Pugh of Comscore explored the impact of frequency and latency in cross-platform advertising effectiveness. In her opening, Tania demonstrated consumer trends and touchpoints to better understand cross-media, in terms of reach and optimizing platforms for specific outcomes. In her discussion, Tania acknowledged the challenges of measurement due to the constant introduction of new innovations and the adoption of new behaviors to track. She also recognized the considerable increase in connected devices per household since the pandemic. Tania pointed out complexities in the current media ecosystem from the increase in which media has merged despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.). In addition to all the changing behavior in media consumption, the speaker noted the emergence of Generation Z is beginning to change the rules for establishing brand love and loyalty. In his discussion, Brian examined findings from the measurement of 400 cross-platform campaigns to understand trends in terms of platform mixes. Brian noted the continued growth of social media and CTV along with the decline in linear TV, though he acknowledged linear still remained “king.” Furthermore, he found that multi-screen campaigns performed better than single-platform campaigns.
In this session, Tania Yuki and Brian Pugh of Comscore explored the impact of frequency and latency in cross-platform advertising effectiveness. In her opening, Tania demonstrated consumer trends and touchpoints to better understand cross-media, in terms of reach and optimizing platforms for specific outcomes. In her discussion, Tania acknowledged the challenges of measurement due to the constant introduction of new innovations and the adoption of new behaviors to track. She also recognized the considerable increase in connected devices per household since the pandemic. Tania pointed out complexities in the current media ecosystem from the increase in which media has merged despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.). In addition to all the changing behavior in media consumption, the speaker noted the emergence of Generation Z is beginning to change the rules for establishing brand love and loyalty. In his discussion, Brian examined findings from the measurement of 400 cross-platform campaigns to understand trends in terms of platform mixes. Brian noted the continued growth of social media and CTV along with the decline in linear TV, though he acknowledged linear still remained "king." Furthermore, he found that multi-screen campaigns performed better than single-platform campaigns.
Key Takeaways
The number of connected devices per household has increased from 9 to 12 since the pandemic, creating a more complex path in which to reach consumers.
Despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.) media is “inextricably commingled together,” leading to "context switching and about getting the right content to the right consumer."
In terms of long-form video, "Linear television is still the juggernaut in the room at 205 billion [viewing] hours." Total video across linear, CTV and digital grew 5% year-over-year in the U.S. CTV viewing increased by 14% of the total hours watched.
Short-form video continues to rise in popularity through Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. This trend in short-form video consumption is growing in double-digit percentages and redefining video consumption across mobile and connected TV screens.
The emergence of Generation Z is changing the marketer approach to brand love and establishing loyalty and building long-term value as their consumer behavior is in contrast to previous cohorts. This is specific to their lack of brand loyalty.
In terms of media consumption, Generation Z are heavy movie watchers (37%), preferring dramas (29%) and cooking shows (23%). Additionally, they expressed interest in local news and documentaries.
Social media is still growing (11%) but there are fewer linear TV households (-9%) as people are consuming media elsewhere and CTV has increased substantially (32%).
Though there was a clear decline in linear TV viewership, linear TV remains supreme regarding total viewership for one channel.
In terms of incremental reach over the length of a campaign, linear TV reached a lot of viewers in the early part of a campaign, but over time the study indicated "reaching incremental people on CTV and digital more often." This finding acknowledged the advantages of a cross-screen campaign in terms of optimizing reach.
Adding screens in a campaign improved brand lift but the variability of results also increased. Additionally, results for ad recall and other variables followed a similar pattern. It was noted that the optimal platform mix depended on the target audience.
