Tag Archives: Business and Economy

September 10, 2015 · 9:25 am

CPT

Making sense of data is really hard, and making sense of data from multiple sources which report in different ways is damn near impossible. Once again, we in the world of marketing are our own worst enemies, I guess. We could learn from our friends in finance.

Pick up any financial report and you’ll see the same statistics, generally reported in the same manner. That manner is GAAP – Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. While CFO’s and analysts have a little leeway within those principles, usually when you look at a piece of data for one company, something labeled the same way for another company means the same thing.

Not so in marketing. I mean, we do try. CPM has always been a measure of efficiency in media. The problem is that there are lots of ways to get to that number, especially in digital. Number of banners displayed? Number of viewable banners displayed? Should it just default to the impressions for which I’m being billed or do I want to factor in things such as actions taken (clicks, etc.)?

I think we need something like a Cost Per Touch metric. This would something standardized and would factor in the number of touch points across all media. An engagement on social media is counted just as is a video watched (you can decide the relative values of each). Actually, I don’t care what we call it but we need something akin to GAAP in the world of marketing data – something that can align web analytics, SEM numbers, social touch points, customer service, etc. Something that can help us to make sense of all of those disparate sources of big data.  Once we’ve standardized all of these things, all the other activities which depend on them become more efficient and productive.  Of course, it also means that there isn’t anyplace to hide since we can’t manipulate the numbers past a certain point.

Your thoughts?

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September 8, 2015 · 10:28 am

It’s Showtime!

Change is hard, and when it’s forced upon you by circumstances beyond your control, it’s even harder. That’s the ongoing situation in the television business, both on the distribution side and on the content provider side (read that as cable/satellite providers and programming services).

English: Logo for Showtime.

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Showtime recently began offing a streaming-only subscriber service, and, as reported in the piece in Adweek, they’re learning a lot from the experience. More about that in a second, but the fact that the Showtime folks are even doing this at all gets a round of applause from me. Too many of my friends in broadcasting (cable-casting, whatever you might call it) are fixated with the traditional (dying) business model. They seem bound and determined to milk every last cent out of it before changing their ways (reality check = music business).  All this while the 13 largest pay-TV providers in the US, which account for approximately 95% of the market, saw a net loss of 470,855 subscribers in Q2 2015—the worst quarterly drop ever.  Now is the time to be trying new things and finding new ways of doing business, not when the drip of cord cutters becomes a flood.

Here is a quote from the article that got my attention:

Showtime Networks President David Nevins has been receiving detailed, data-fueled reports about its growth and usage each day. Having long been limited to getting monthly reports about subscriber trends for the premium cable network, he now browses detailed updates each morning, learning how many subscriptions were sold and what the service’s usage looks like.

While you might wonder why they weren’t looking at usage reports before, the reality is that there was little incentive to do so.  The network stuck their deals with service providers – the cable distributors were their customers, not “civilians.”  While they are no longer being separated from their users by a middleman, they’re also having to learn a lot about those users, which wasn’t an imperative before.  That transition, by the way, is probably one of the biggest impacts of digital – the disintermediation effect on many businesses.

“You can see on a nightly basis exactly what people are watching, and it’s fascinating.”  Anyone in business needs to know what our customers are consuming, as well as how and why they’re doing so.  Moreover, we need to be open to changing how we do business, better to serve both those customers and our bottom lines.  Showtime has been.  You?

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August 28, 2015 · 8:46 am

Substitutions

This Foodie Friday I’d like to talk about something I hope you have handy in your kitchen: a table of substitutes. There is nothing worse than doing your mise en place and realizing that you’re out of something you need for what you’re making. Maybe it’s sour cream for a dip you decided to whip up to watch TV (use plain yogurt – Greek if you have it!). Maybe you need some buttermilk but only have regular (combine a tablespoon of an acid – lemon juice, vinegar – and enough milk to make a cup). How many large eggs can I substitute in when the recipe calls for jumbo?  Even understanding how to substitute dried herbs for fresh is important (use 1/3 as much dried as fresh). Having a list of things which can serve as alternatives is very handy and can often save a dish.  

We need to do that in business too. When we don’t have the proper things for what we’re trying to accomplish, we need to figure out substitutes. Maybe the higher-ups aren’t giving us the resources we need or maybe the budget isn’t big enough to cover the project at hand. We need to think about alternatives and reframe the problem. Maybe there are exceptions to what we perceive as the norm – organizations who have faced a similar challenge. Can those exceptions point us in another direction?

There are some things for which there are no substitutes.  Good people, for one, and smart, out of the box thinking for another.  I realize that you can’t cook a piece of chicken and call it beef.  Then again, you can substitute turkey for veal in some dishes so maybe chicken for beef isn’t so far-fetched.  That sort of thinking is something in which every organization needs to engage.  What business model can we substitute for our own if things begin to fall apart?

My table of substitutions is tucked away in a kitchen drawer and I rarely need to use it.  I used to have one for my business tucked in a desk drawer – people I might want to hire, companies to replace current partnerships if they fell apart.   Where is yours?

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