The media landscape continues to evolve, arguably at a faster rate than ever. Leading media and measurement experts presented research-based insights on how viewers use different forms of TV/video on various platforms. Attendees joined us at the Warner Bros. Discovery Studios in California and via livestream to understand the latest data and discussions of the data’s implications.
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At our second annual Creative Effectiveness event, industry visionaries discussed the perspectives, theories, and resources they employ to develop and measure great creative. Attendees joined us in New York City or via livestream to hear fresh insights on the advertising landscape: from using AI as a stimulus for creative to extracting behavioral data and using that to try and inspire creative. Immediately after, we honored the teams behind insights-driven advertising with the ARF David Ogilvy Awards ceremony and dinner. The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners were announced, as well as the reveal of this year’s prestigious Grand Ogilvy Award recipient.
Member Only AccessOn April 16, the ARF and Kantar unveiled a newly developed best-in-class framework, Cracking Brand Purpose, which is meant to shape, guide and evaluate purpose campaigns even in the context of a difficult news environment.
Change has been the only constant of the past 18 months, but for brands that know how to adapt, this change represents opportunity. Holistic measurement – from understanding incremental impact across channels to building in considerations for macro factors like consumer behavior shifts and the pandemic – is key to sustained growth.
Stephen DiMarco (Tubular Labs) moderated this discussion on the second day of the conference with the anchor commentators who shared their perspectives on what they heard and what it means.
Realeyes uses software solutions for measuring human attentional and emotional response to advertising. Max Kalehoff explained the importance of attention measurement as a gauge of brand performance. He urged companies, particularly those with latent sales, to incorporate it into their business models.
In a 2019 Pew survey, 79% of Americans say that they know big companies track their online behavior while 59% say they don’t know how the data is used and have little control over how the data is used. In a 2020 survey, Pew found that most Americans want the right to permanently delete their health related data.
Rex Briggs, Founder & Executive Chairman of Marketing Evolution, who had developed forecasts of US COVID infections and deaths early in 2020, before it had been declared a pandemic, talked about the difficulties in “exponential forecasting” of events like a pandemic, compared to “stable state” forecasting of the impact of media, marketing, and creative. Just as companies might not have anticipated the impact of COVID-19 as it spread, they may be caught “flat-footed” in forecasting the exponential decay of the disease as vaccinations spread in 2021. Business forecasts of the impact of COVID in 2021 should take into account vaccination rates by age and surveys on acceptance of the vaccine.
Robin Garfield, EVP of Research & Scheduling at CNN, discussed the unusual fervor of the American electorate over the past two years: The turnout in the 2018 mid-terms was the highest for any mid-term election since 1914, and the turnout for the 2020 race was the highest for any presidential election since 1908. Campaign spending and viewing of cable news programs soared in 2020.
The ARF’s second Virtual Town Hall, How is the Coronavirus Impacting the Global Advertising Industry?, focused on the recent coronavirus outbreak and how to best plan and recover from a recession market. Huge parts of the U.S. economy have shut down. From restaurants to gyms to hotel chains, workers are being hit hard as layoffs snowball daily. The advertising industry is feeling the shock as advertising budgets dry up due to postponed launches and canceled sporting, entertainment and business events.