Tag Archives: Media Buying and Planning

December 9, 2013 · 10:59 am

Is DWV Dangerous To Your Business?

It’s an epidemic!  I’m talking about DWV – Distracted While Viewing.  While not as physically perilous as texting while driving, if you are in the business of using television to get marketing messages to you audience, or if you’re a content creator who puts content on a TV screen (and remember that almost ANYTHING can be streamed to a TV), you need to understand what’s going on out there in media land.

English: American family watching TV (cropped)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might have heard some folks in the ad business complaining about web sites whose ads aren’t viewable above the fold.  Let’s put that (specious) argument in the context of a research study released last week from the Multimedia Research Group.  Try this summary on for size:

In general, multitasking while watching TV is a growing trend and that an increasing number of US adults are becoming TV multitaskers. The data show that most TV multitaskers are younger adults between the ages of 18-35.  The 35-44 age group is rapidly adopting mobile device multitasking, but still lags the younger adults in performing TV-related multitasking activities.

In fact, only 40% of folk report they DON’T do anything else with a second screen while watching.  An equal number frequently multitask, but not related to the TV program they are watching.  The final group is TV multitaskers; those who frequently multitask related to the TV program they are watching.  The numbers among younger people in particular (18-24) are representative of how things have changed.  80% are multitasking, split roughly evenly among those doing something related to what they are watching and activities that are not related.  The numbers aren’t much different in the 25-34 group although they seem to do more unrelated to what they’re watching.

So the most attractive demo – 18-34  – has learned to use their tablets and smartphones to view TV differently.  They’re distracted from the main screen although some may be quite engaged with the content on their second screen.  The real question is how are you going to rethink what you’re doing to capture this behavior as part of your engagement with this audience.  Anyone have a good answer?

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June 11, 2013 · 10:05 am

Ratings Are Back-Assward

I saw something this morning with which I agree totally. It’s a statement, reported in MediaPost, by Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Laura Desmond about how media is measured and how consumers’ multi-screen consumption makes the traditional methods far less useful. As she said: “We need to invest in new measurement techniques for brands.”  That’s right, except that for the most part what we hear about has nothing to do with brands.  In fact, what we do now, and what I expect the industry will do in the future is completely backward.  Let me explain.

When you read about the most-viewed content of the week, have you ever seen a mention of a commercial?  Nope.  It’s all about programs – The Voice or Idol or Duck Dynasty.  The measurements, as Ms. Desmond said, tend to be channel-specific and, therefore, might not reflect all of the consumption that’s occurring.  The point that’s missed from a marketing perspective is that brands use these ratings to estimate how many times their ad was seen and what value they derived from their investment.  My question is this:

Why are we measuring for one thing and reporting for another?

If what we’re after is how many people are seeing a message, why do we care about the vehicle in which that message is delivered?  The industry makes the programming entities measure themselves (fair, since that’s who’s getting paid to deliver the message) but then assumes everyone watching sees the message (OK, I know some folks adjust the numbers slightly but humor my rant here, please).  Why aren’t we working on a system where a brand message carries some sort of tag across all channels that would allow all the impressions to aggregate?  Further, those tags could be used much like cookies to track conversions.  Since it’s the brands that pay for the impressions, should it be their own results that are tracked?

If the industry follows Ms. Desmond’s thinking and does invest in new techniques to measure cross-channel results, they’ll have a hard time if what they’re measuring are programs.  Many programs aren’t in all the places brands want to go.  Some are sold by different sales entities across channels.  It’s backward to measure an inconsistent series of channels instead of the consistent brand who is paying the bills.

What do you think?

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March 27, 2013 · 9:33 am

Are You A Premium Brand?

I read something that the folks at OpenX released the other day in conjunction with Digiday.  It’s the results of a study on Programmatic Buying and how it affects premium publishers. Since 71% of publishers and buyers trade ads programmatically it’s a big deal. You can read the paper here.

Luxury Penthouse rental in downtown Telluride ...

(Photo credit: HeartOfTelluride.com)

Having been a publisher of premium content I can tell you that I hated selling anything programmatically.  I wanted my sales folks involved directly with the buyer.  Not just so that we could get the premium CPM we felt we deserved but because we needed to earn that higher rate by doing a better job of meeting the needs of the client and delivering perfect service.  The study sums it up nicely:

Publishers, fearing the commoditization of the inventory surrounding their expensively produced content and painstakingly nurtured audiences, have every right to guard their investment. They want to make sure that any system that removes “friction” doesn’t also remove the distinction of their brand and the quality of their adjacencies, as measured by audience engagement. And, understandably, they want to preserve the professional relationships that forge the bedrock of their sustainable revenue growth.

Exactly.  But as the Digiday article states, premium is all in the eye of the beholder.  Which raised the issue I’ve been considering:  how do you define a premium brand?  Is it scarcity?  To a certain extent it is although there are plenty of Lexus cars around and that’s a premium brand.  Cost?  Maybe relative to other products in its class but coffee can be premium and it’s still relatively inexpensive.  One factor involved is positioning.  If you usually fly first class, being in business class seems cramped.  To a coach passenger, however, business class is premium.  Another is authenticity of some sort.  I was a publisher of hockey content – there are lots of people who do that.  I was the only official league outlet, however – that meant scarcity, authenticity, and in our minds a greater worth.

I could go on here for another 1,000 words but the notion of “premium” is one that’s going to become even more front and center as content becomes more commoditized.  I mean that not only in media buyers‘ minds but also in consumers’ minds.  It’s hard to ask consumers to pay a premium, either in money or in attention,  for an app or content or anything else if we can’t establish that premium status in their minds.

What do you think?

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