We all know that “reach” is currently thought of in terms of media. In a recent survey of 2,047 marketers and media buyers, “reach” was still considered the No. 1 criteria when framing their media plans.
Less than half of these marketers and media buyers ranked “engagement” among their top five criteria when buying media.
When it comes to determining the effectiveness of media, it seems “how many” are exposed to a commercial still outweighs “how long” they actually watched the commercial for.
And, maybe that’s the way it should be.
Media really has little to do with “how long” somebody watches a commercial for. That is the creative agency’s responsibility. The responsibility of media is to deliver the message to the people. Once a viewer clicks-in to watch the commercial, the responsibility regarding how long the viewer's involved with the spot transfers to the creative agency.
But with the amount of transparency and measurability now available on the digital platform, reach and engagement have the chance to morph into one another.
After all, reaching someone doesn’t just mean being in front of them. It can also mean getting through to them, connecting with them. Which starts to sound a lot like engagement, doesn’t it?
The old definition of “reach”, which basically meant an impression, seems like a fool’s errand on the digital platform. Creating relationships between brands and people is where the dollars should be focused.
But to do that, the industry has to suffer through a period where they admit that most of their commercials don’t truly reach anyone. The fact is, most commercials are considered necessary irritants by most viewers. 74% of respondents to a recent survey said in-stream ads were intrusive. One half of those surveyed said that they physically stop watching the video once encountering an in-stream ad. 15.3% of viewers leave the website altogether when encountering an in-stream ad. And up to 84% fast-forward through an in-stream ad when they have the chance to do so.
Less than encouraging, to say the least.
Of course, in-stream is just another way of saying intrusive. The industry uses the term “in-stream” as it sounds less offensive. After all, to intrude is to be rude. And nobody wants to be considered rude.
But as control shifts to the viewer, so to will our ways of reaching them. If the survey results are accurate, it seems that the best way to reach someone on the digital platform is to let them reach us. Let viewers opt-in to messages and videos of interest, some of which will be commercials.
Oh, yes, the reach (impressions) will be smaller. But at the same time, the reach (engagement) will be greater.
“Who in the hell would opt-in to an ad about refrigerators?” you might say. Well, obviously anyone whose refrigerator just broke down. Or, is in the process of remodeling their kitchen.
Now when it comes to this person, what type of reach is more effective?
Exposed reach? Or, engaged reach?
Chances are, most would prefer the latter.
And, if that’s the case, then advertisers declaring that reach is still their No. 1 criteria, makes sense.
Which means as we switch from impression-based marketing models to involvement-based marketing models, we won’t need to throw away the word we’ve all grown accustomed to.
As long as we can all come to an agreement that it no longer means what it did.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
If A Commercial Is A Promise of Involvement, Should The Agency Be Held Accountable If The Promise Isn't Fulfilled?
When I asked this question in an earlier post, the response was quite interesting. There were many agencies who said, “Of course not. We can’t be accountable for something like that.”
When these were media agencies speaking, I had to agree with them. Media agencies are accountable for exposing consumers to the message, not involving them in the message.
But if they were creative agencies that were protesting, then not so fast. Let’s face it, creative agencies need to be held accountable for something. And, in this digital age, it really can’t be sales, like it was back in the analog day.
Back then, one agency, called the Agency of Record, did all of the messaging. Not so today. Instead of an Agency of Record, advertisers have a record number of agencies.
And even though some marketers still do hold their agencies accountable for sales, it seems a bit unfair to do so when an account may have ten different agencies working on ten different aspects of it.
But then, what should a creative agency be held accountable for? Nothing? I think not.
Rather, it should be what they have control over. Which brings us back to the video messaging they create. When viewers start watching the video message, how much of it did they watch?
Is it not the creative agency’s responsibility to get viewers to watch as much of the spot as possible? The client paid to have thirty—or whatever amount of seconds— produced. I would think if the client paid for thirty seconds to be produced, they must feel that all thirty were important to communicate the message.
If most viewers stop watching after say, 12 seconds, well then, the agency didn’t fulfill their responsibility, did they?
They didn’t deliver on the promise they made to the client when they sold the client the commercial.
Should the agency be docked in pay for this?
You can hear the complaints already, can’t you? “Well, we would work that way if the client let us control the creative.”
Really?
You mean that once the agency sold the script, if the client backed off and let the agency produce it the way they think it should be produced, then the agency would be willing to be held financially accountable for how well it involved viewers?
In other words, when people stop watching, the agency stops getting paid for that job. Agencies would really be willing to work that way?
Okay.
Advertisers, the ball’s in your court. View duration time or time-spent with a video messsage can now be measured in the digital marketplace. Tell your agency you will pay them on a Return On Involvement model. The longer viewers are involved in the commercial, the more the agency will make. The less time they involve the viewer in the commercial, the less the agency makes.
In other words, the better or more involving the commercial is, the more the agency makes.
Quite simple really.
Yet, most agencies still won’t do it. Why? Because they know.
They know that the advertising they’re being paid millions to create isn’t designed to be involving. It’s designed to create awareness. It's designed to break through clutter. It’s designed to create high “day after” recall scores.
To involve someone in a piece of advertising is a skill long sucked out of most creative people.
Yes, there are a few agencies that will prove the exception. These are the agencies that are still, for lack of a better word, storytellers. We all know the four or five agencies we’re talking about.
And chances are, they will probably be the first to branch out into this new way of being paid.
After all, they’ll make more if they do. The work will be better. And ultimately, advertising will be more effective.
That’s a promise.
And it's a promise that I don’t mind being held accountable for.
When these were media agencies speaking, I had to agree with them. Media agencies are accountable for exposing consumers to the message, not involving them in the message.
But if they were creative agencies that were protesting, then not so fast. Let’s face it, creative agencies need to be held accountable for something. And, in this digital age, it really can’t be sales, like it was back in the analog day.
Back then, one agency, called the Agency of Record, did all of the messaging. Not so today. Instead of an Agency of Record, advertisers have a record number of agencies.
And even though some marketers still do hold their agencies accountable for sales, it seems a bit unfair to do so when an account may have ten different agencies working on ten different aspects of it.
But then, what should a creative agency be held accountable for? Nothing? I think not.
Rather, it should be what they have control over. Which brings us back to the video messaging they create. When viewers start watching the video message, how much of it did they watch?
Is it not the creative agency’s responsibility to get viewers to watch as much of the spot as possible? The client paid to have thirty—or whatever amount of seconds— produced. I would think if the client paid for thirty seconds to be produced, they must feel that all thirty were important to communicate the message.
If most viewers stop watching after say, 12 seconds, well then, the agency didn’t fulfill their responsibility, did they?
They didn’t deliver on the promise they made to the client when they sold the client the commercial.
Should the agency be docked in pay for this?
You can hear the complaints already, can’t you? “Well, we would work that way if the client let us control the creative.”
Really?
You mean that once the agency sold the script, if the client backed off and let the agency produce it the way they think it should be produced, then the agency would be willing to be held financially accountable for how well it involved viewers?
In other words, when people stop watching, the agency stops getting paid for that job. Agencies would really be willing to work that way?
Okay.
Advertisers, the ball’s in your court. View duration time or time-spent with a video messsage can now be measured in the digital marketplace. Tell your agency you will pay them on a Return On Involvement model. The longer viewers are involved in the commercial, the more the agency will make. The less time they involve the viewer in the commercial, the less the agency makes.
In other words, the better or more involving the commercial is, the more the agency makes.
Quite simple really.
Yet, most agencies still won’t do it. Why? Because they know.
They know that the advertising they’re being paid millions to create isn’t designed to be involving. It’s designed to create awareness. It's designed to break through clutter. It’s designed to create high “day after” recall scores.
To involve someone in a piece of advertising is a skill long sucked out of most creative people.
Yes, there are a few agencies that will prove the exception. These are the agencies that are still, for lack of a better word, storytellers. We all know the four or five agencies we’re talking about.
And chances are, they will probably be the first to branch out into this new way of being paid.
After all, they’ll make more if they do. The work will be better. And ultimately, advertising will be more effective.
That’s a promise.
And it's a promise that I don’t mind being held accountable for.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Why Are Goodby, Wieden and Crispin Leaving Money On The Table?
Walk the halls of any good creative agency and the lament you’ll hear is the same. “Why can’t we be paid based on how good we are?”
You won’t hear this from the larger, more traditional shops. No, being paid based on the number of people assigned to the account, multiplied by the number of hours worked, is just fine with them. Heaven forbid being paid based on the quality of the creative execution.
Risky proposition, that.
Unless, of course, you’re good at what you do.
So, excusing the behemoths from the discussion, let’s focus on those who are confident enough in their ability to create work that's interesting enough to involve a viewer or two.
Why are they—Goodby Silverstein and Partners, Wieden + Kennedy, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, alright, we’ll also throw in TBWA/Chiat Day out of respect for Lee Clow—why are they not demanding that they be paid commensurate to what they can deliver?
Digital data now allows this to happen on both online and VOD/DVR platforms.
After all, it only seems right that if the work doesn’t involve the viewer, advertisers should be able to pay their agencies less for failure. Conversely, if the data shows that the creative was involving, agencies should be paid handsomely for success.
How do we define handsomely? Two to three times as much as they would normally make seems fair to us.
So, why aren’t the more creative agencies demanding this?
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, the founders of their shop GSP, are both disciples of Howard “Luck” Gossage, an iconoclastic ad man from San Francisco. Howard believed that to involve the reader was not just the job, but also the responsibility, of advertising.
If Howard were alive today, and knowing how much he wanted to bring respect to a business that had little, he no doubt would have been one of the first to say, “Now, that seems a f-f-fair way to earn a b-b-buck.” (Howard, you see, had a bit of a stammer.)
Your agency, Jeff and Rich, has the chance to bring that philosophy into video. To have viewers who are interested, opt-in to your brand stories. And, since you’re not restricted to thirty seconds on the digital platform, these stories can be as long as you’re able to make them interesting.
I know that you believe in the idea of story. And you create very good ones. So why not tell your client that you want to be paid for creative based on how well viewers get involved in the story?
What is your client going to say? No?
Doubtful.
After all, what you are basically saying is that you will be accountable for your creative product. If the story isn’t involving, well, you will make very little. But if you’re successful, it’s a win/win/win.
The client gets a more involving commercial. You get more money. And viewers get commercials actually worth watching.
Granted, it won’t be easy. For a creative person to know when their work has become boring is difficult. Left to their own devices, it’s hard to separate the shit from the shinola. It will take someone with a good crap detector to say, “I’d stop there.”
After all, when viewers stop watching, the agency stops making money.
As for Crispin, your current Burger King creative, where the Whopper is taken away, is simply brilliant. People can’t take their eyes off it. So much so that it has the highest advertising recall numbers ever logged by IAG Research in the six years that the firm has been tracking audience responses to TV commercials.
That said, I bet you left some money on the table on that one, didn’t you? The creative fee was probably covered under your retainer. It had nothing to do with how good the work was.
Imagine if you were paid based on involvement.
So, maybe it’s time for a few shops to step up and put their creative where their mouth is. If you want to be the best, then actually be paid for proving that you are.
Advertisers are ready. At least, some. There are still those out there saying, “Hold on a second. I don’t pay my agency for involvement. I pay them for sales.”
In the past, you did. But in the digital marketplace, how a sale goes down is a very different process.
As research is showing, there is a direct correlation between sales and the amount of time spent with a brand. In the digital economy, your job as a marketer, is to increase the amount of time spent with your brand across the various touchpoints.
Why?
Simply because while time is finite—there are only 24-hours in a day—the number of choices for viewers is becoming infinite. The more time you can get a viewer/reader to spend with your brand, the less time they will have to spend with the competitor's brand.
Your agency’s job is to create that time-spent for you
Pay them well when they do.
Success has little choice but to follow.
You won’t hear this from the larger, more traditional shops. No, being paid based on the number of people assigned to the account, multiplied by the number of hours worked, is just fine with them. Heaven forbid being paid based on the quality of the creative execution.
Risky proposition, that.
Unless, of course, you’re good at what you do.
So, excusing the behemoths from the discussion, let’s focus on those who are confident enough in their ability to create work that's interesting enough to involve a viewer or two.
Why are they—Goodby Silverstein and Partners, Wieden + Kennedy, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, alright, we’ll also throw in TBWA/Chiat Day out of respect for Lee Clow—why are they not demanding that they be paid commensurate to what they can deliver?
Digital data now allows this to happen on both online and VOD/DVR platforms.
After all, it only seems right that if the work doesn’t involve the viewer, advertisers should be able to pay their agencies less for failure. Conversely, if the data shows that the creative was involving, agencies should be paid handsomely for success.
How do we define handsomely? Two to three times as much as they would normally make seems fair to us.
So, why aren’t the more creative agencies demanding this?
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, the founders of their shop GSP, are both disciples of Howard “Luck” Gossage, an iconoclastic ad man from San Francisco. Howard believed that to involve the reader was not just the job, but also the responsibility, of advertising.
If Howard were alive today, and knowing how much he wanted to bring respect to a business that had little, he no doubt would have been one of the first to say, “Now, that seems a f-f-fair way to earn a b-b-buck.” (Howard, you see, had a bit of a stammer.)
Your agency, Jeff and Rich, has the chance to bring that philosophy into video. To have viewers who are interested, opt-in to your brand stories. And, since you’re not restricted to thirty seconds on the digital platform, these stories can be as long as you’re able to make them interesting.
I know that you believe in the idea of story. And you create very good ones. So why not tell your client that you want to be paid for creative based on how well viewers get involved in the story?
What is your client going to say? No?
Doubtful.
After all, what you are basically saying is that you will be accountable for your creative product. If the story isn’t involving, well, you will make very little. But if you’re successful, it’s a win/win/win.
The client gets a more involving commercial. You get more money. And viewers get commercials actually worth watching.
Granted, it won’t be easy. For a creative person to know when their work has become boring is difficult. Left to their own devices, it’s hard to separate the shit from the shinola. It will take someone with a good crap detector to say, “I’d stop there.”
After all, when viewers stop watching, the agency stops making money.
As for Crispin, your current Burger King creative, where the Whopper is taken away, is simply brilliant. People can’t take their eyes off it. So much so that it has the highest advertising recall numbers ever logged by IAG Research in the six years that the firm has been tracking audience responses to TV commercials.
That said, I bet you left some money on the table on that one, didn’t you? The creative fee was probably covered under your retainer. It had nothing to do with how good the work was.
Imagine if you were paid based on involvement.
So, maybe it’s time for a few shops to step up and put their creative where their mouth is. If you want to be the best, then actually be paid for proving that you are.
Advertisers are ready. At least, some. There are still those out there saying, “Hold on a second. I don’t pay my agency for involvement. I pay them for sales.”
In the past, you did. But in the digital marketplace, how a sale goes down is a very different process.
As research is showing, there is a direct correlation between sales and the amount of time spent with a brand. In the digital economy, your job as a marketer, is to increase the amount of time spent with your brand across the various touchpoints.
Why?
Simply because while time is finite—there are only 24-hours in a day—the number of choices for viewers is becoming infinite. The more time you can get a viewer/reader to spend with your brand, the less time they will have to spend with the competitor's brand.
Your agency’s job is to create that time-spent for you
Pay them well when they do.
Success has little choice but to follow.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Why Are CBS, NBC And ABC Leaving Money On The Table?
Check the currency exchange rates today and you’ll see that $1 U.S. will buy you .67 euros, 108 yen and 10.9 pesos.
I mention this only because it’s time for media companies to think about exchanging their current currency—impressions—for a much stronger currency in the digital marketplace.
Time-spent (as measured in seconds on digital platforms).
The question is, what is one second of a viewer’s time worth? As an industry, we’ve never had to deal with this before. The advertising business has been built on buying and selling impressions, not time-spent.
Traditionally, a thirty-second spot costs so much per viewer—at $0.02/viewer, it’s a $20 CPM. Whether the viewer watched all thirty seconds, or zero seconds, has no bearing on price.
Time-spent with the message, if it occurs at all, is basically thrown in for nothing. It’s as if time-spent has no value.
But let’s say that you’re running a 30-second spot. Would you consider a 29-second impression to be more valuable than a 2-second impression?
If your answer is yes, then why are media companies like CBS, NBC, ABC, Comcast and Time Warner, not charging for this added value?
Or, in other words, leaving money on the table?
In the eyes of the investment community, media companies are currently being valued based on size, i.e. ratings. (Read the Diane Mermigas article for more on this.) As audience size continues to shrink, so too, does a media company’s value. Switching from a devalued currency—impressions—to one that’s increasing in strength—time-spent—would increase a media companies perceived value in the eyes of Wall Street.
Value, after all, lies in what is scarce. Because time is finite—there are only 24-hours in a day—time-spent will continue to increase in value. While the number of ways to spend one’s viewing time increase every day, the amount of time in which to do so, does not.
Obviously, how much time a viewer spends with a commercial is not the responsibility of CBS, NBC or ABC. Rather, it is the responsibility of the creative agency.
The responsibility of CBS, NBC, ABC, Comcast, Time-Warner and others, is to provide the data so that advertisers can hold their creative agencies accountable.
And, since this time-spent data offers value, to provide it at a price.
Which brings us back to where we started. What’s a fair price for a second?
How about $50? Sounds high at first blush, doesn’t it?
But considering that the production cost for the average second in a national TV commercial is close to $13,000, paying $50/second to see if that second was actually watched seems to be a small price to pay.
What’s more, because time is finite, the more time an advertiser can involve a viewer with their messaging, the less time that viewer has to spend with the competitor’s messaging.
In this way, time-spent starts to offer advertisers a competitive advantage. And allows them to see how a healthy Return on Involvement can lead to a healthy Return on Investment.
I don’t know how many seconds CBS, NBC or ABC run in advertising on their digital platforms on a yearly basis. But multiplying each of those seconds by $50 would seem to add up to a relatively healthy revenue stream rather quickly.
So, obviously, I’m missing something.
After all, it’s not like them to leave money on the table.
I mention this only because it’s time for media companies to think about exchanging their current currency—impressions—for a much stronger currency in the digital marketplace.
Time-spent (as measured in seconds on digital platforms).
The question is, what is one second of a viewer’s time worth? As an industry, we’ve never had to deal with this before. The advertising business has been built on buying and selling impressions, not time-spent.
Traditionally, a thirty-second spot costs so much per viewer—at $0.02/viewer, it’s a $20 CPM. Whether the viewer watched all thirty seconds, or zero seconds, has no bearing on price.
Time-spent with the message, if it occurs at all, is basically thrown in for nothing. It’s as if time-spent has no value.
But let’s say that you’re running a 30-second spot. Would you consider a 29-second impression to be more valuable than a 2-second impression?
If your answer is yes, then why are media companies like CBS, NBC, ABC, Comcast and Time Warner, not charging for this added value?
Or, in other words, leaving money on the table?
In the eyes of the investment community, media companies are currently being valued based on size, i.e. ratings. (Read the Diane Mermigas article for more on this.) As audience size continues to shrink, so too, does a media company’s value. Switching from a devalued currency—impressions—to one that’s increasing in strength—time-spent—would increase a media companies perceived value in the eyes of Wall Street.
Value, after all, lies in what is scarce. Because time is finite—there are only 24-hours in a day—time-spent will continue to increase in value. While the number of ways to spend one’s viewing time increase every day, the amount of time in which to do so, does not.
Obviously, how much time a viewer spends with a commercial is not the responsibility of CBS, NBC or ABC. Rather, it is the responsibility of the creative agency.
The responsibility of CBS, NBC, ABC, Comcast, Time-Warner and others, is to provide the data so that advertisers can hold their creative agencies accountable.
And, since this time-spent data offers value, to provide it at a price.
Which brings us back to where we started. What’s a fair price for a second?
How about $50? Sounds high at first blush, doesn’t it?
But considering that the production cost for the average second in a national TV commercial is close to $13,000, paying $50/second to see if that second was actually watched seems to be a small price to pay.
What’s more, because time is finite, the more time an advertiser can involve a viewer with their messaging, the less time that viewer has to spend with the competitor’s messaging.
In this way, time-spent starts to offer advertisers a competitive advantage. And allows them to see how a healthy Return on Involvement can lead to a healthy Return on Investment.
I don’t know how many seconds CBS, NBC or ABC run in advertising on their digital platforms on a yearly basis. But multiplying each of those seconds by $50 would seem to add up to a relatively healthy revenue stream rather quickly.
So, obviously, I’m missing something.
After all, it’s not like them to leave money on the table.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Becoming Impression-Agnostic Before It's Too Late
Tomorrow, when you go to work, try something different. Don’t give a damn how many people see your advertising.
Really. Tomorrow make it a point not to worry whether three thousand or three million viewers end up seeing your television commercials.
Instead, go to work tomorrow worrying about something even more important. Rather than how many see your commercials, worry about how much time they spend with them.
From the limited amount of time that each consumer has to dedicate to advertising on any particular day, how much of their time did your commercials earn?
5%?
20%?
None?
Becoming impression-agnostic allows your thought paradigm to shift. Instead of only aggregating the number that are exposed to your advertising, you’ll be open to also aggregating the amount of time that viewers are actually involved with it.
If you’re running three different thirty-second commercials, the total possible amount of involvement time per viewer is ninety seconds. What was your advertising’s Return on Involvement (ROI 2.0?) on those ninety seconds? If consumers watched forty-five out of a possible ninety-seconds, that would mean a Return on Involvement of 50%.
Will you consider that to be a good commercial ROI?
Or, will you demand more?
If a commercial is a promise (from your creative agency) of viewer involvement (which it is), then shouldn’t you be allowed to pay said agency less if the promise isn’t fulfilled? If the Return on Involvement for the commercial is only 50%, should the agency only get 50% of its fee for creating that commercial?
Preposterous?
Afraid not.
During a session at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, called “Reinventing Advertising”, the panelists talked about the renewed power of TV advertising, mostly due to the TV server data in the hands of cable operators.
One of the panelists, a Comcast executive, indicated that they would be willing to share more of the digital data that they were accumulating. But then, sounding a bit like Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”, he implied that “Agencies can’t handle the truth.”
Or, in this case, “the truth” the data will expose.
A Starcom media agency executive, responded brashly, “Bring it on!” Which, of course, besides reminding one of our current President, misses the point completely.
You see, the kind of data that Comcast can now offer includes viewer start and stop times for individual commercials. In other words, viewer time-spent with the actual commercial.
Unfortunately, it appears that the time-spent data will not be altogether encouraging. When given control, viewers tend to watch only what interests them. And, while that occasionally happens to be a commercial, more often than not, it’s everything but.
Which means to “bring it on,” may soon leave this media agency exec with data that says the ads aren’t working. And, in turn, with little or no creative to try and buy time for.
Impressions, while becoming more difficult to aggregate, are still relatively easy to buy comparable to buying time-spent with a commercial. The fact of the matter is you can’t buy time-spent with a commercial.
One has to earn it. And unfortunately, I think most of us have forgotten how to “earn” anything in this business.
So the sooner we all start thinking about it, the better.
Which is why I suggest tomorrow.
Because as what’s deemed to be important switches from how many saw the commercial to how much time a viewer actually spends with the commercial, everything that everyone thinks they know about the craft of advertising will change.
Hopefully, for the better.
Only time, or this case, time-spent, will tell.
(An article in this week's Ad Age confirms that reach is still the No. 1 criteria of marketers when making their media plans.)
Really. Tomorrow make it a point not to worry whether three thousand or three million viewers end up seeing your television commercials.
Instead, go to work tomorrow worrying about something even more important. Rather than how many see your commercials, worry about how much time they spend with them.
From the limited amount of time that each consumer has to dedicate to advertising on any particular day, how much of their time did your commercials earn?
5%?
20%?
None?
Becoming impression-agnostic allows your thought paradigm to shift. Instead of only aggregating the number that are exposed to your advertising, you’ll be open to also aggregating the amount of time that viewers are actually involved with it.
If you’re running three different thirty-second commercials, the total possible amount of involvement time per viewer is ninety seconds. What was your advertising’s Return on Involvement (ROI 2.0?) on those ninety seconds? If consumers watched forty-five out of a possible ninety-seconds, that would mean a Return on Involvement of 50%.
Will you consider that to be a good commercial ROI?
Or, will you demand more?
If a commercial is a promise (from your creative agency) of viewer involvement (which it is), then shouldn’t you be allowed to pay said agency less if the promise isn’t fulfilled? If the Return on Involvement for the commercial is only 50%, should the agency only get 50% of its fee for creating that commercial?
Preposterous?
Afraid not.
During a session at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, called “Reinventing Advertising”, the panelists talked about the renewed power of TV advertising, mostly due to the TV server data in the hands of cable operators.
One of the panelists, a Comcast executive, indicated that they would be willing to share more of the digital data that they were accumulating. But then, sounding a bit like Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”, he implied that “Agencies can’t handle the truth.”
Or, in this case, “the truth” the data will expose.
A Starcom media agency executive, responded brashly, “Bring it on!” Which, of course, besides reminding one of our current President, misses the point completely.
You see, the kind of data that Comcast can now offer includes viewer start and stop times for individual commercials. In other words, viewer time-spent with the actual commercial.
Unfortunately, it appears that the time-spent data will not be altogether encouraging. When given control, viewers tend to watch only what interests them. And, while that occasionally happens to be a commercial, more often than not, it’s everything but.
Which means to “bring it on,” may soon leave this media agency exec with data that says the ads aren’t working. And, in turn, with little or no creative to try and buy time for.
Impressions, while becoming more difficult to aggregate, are still relatively easy to buy comparable to buying time-spent with a commercial. The fact of the matter is you can’t buy time-spent with a commercial.
One has to earn it. And unfortunately, I think most of us have forgotten how to “earn” anything in this business.
So the sooner we all start thinking about it, the better.
Which is why I suggest tomorrow.
Because as what’s deemed to be important switches from how many saw the commercial to how much time a viewer actually spends with the commercial, everything that everyone thinks they know about the craft of advertising will change.
Hopefully, for the better.
Only time, or this case, time-spent, will tell.
(An article in this week's Ad Age confirms that reach is still the No. 1 criteria of marketers when making their media plans.)
Monday, January 07, 2008
Has Advertising Become More Impotent Than Important?
In the digital marketplace, as we all know, the number of viewers per commercial is decreasing. As this seems to be the new reality, is now not the time to try and discover new ways to measure the effectiveness of a commercial?
Reach and frequency have had their run, their 50 years of fame, so to speak. They served the industry well and will be fondly remembered.
But as we enter this New Year, can we at least make the resolution to let go of the old and bring in the new?
I know it sounds simplistic, but to actually start doing something new, one simply needs to stop doing something old. Reach and frequency are old.
Next.
Unfortunately, sales, also a popular past determinate of effectiveness, can no longer be directly tied to the efforts of advertising. According to Deloitte’s Consumer Products Group, 62% of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet, with more than 8 in 10 saying their purchase decisions are influenced by such reviews.
What’s more, 80% of consumers trust brand recommendations from family, friends and “influential” persons over advertising and marketing.
While advertising still has a role, what that role is, certainly needs redefining.
In the meantime, it could be argued that advertising is becoming more impotent and less important every day.
Current estimates indicate that those who live in cities are exposed to somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 ad message on a daily basis. Considering that, at best, the average consumer may remember 4 of those messages, tell me, how does this make an advertising professional feel?
Important?
Hardly.
The rub is that as advertising becomes less effective, the need for great advertising becomes more extreme. The cacophony of choices that consumers are confronted with on a daily basis is overwhelming their capacity to distinguish one brand from another.
In some primeval sense, consumers are begging for clarity.
They want nothing more than for order to reign in the chaos. For brands to be strong and powerful. For their purchase decisions to be made for them.
Brands used to do that.
Not any more.
Instead, brands today pursue impressions over involvement.
Mass over meaning.
Short-term hits rather than long-term commitments.
But, the fact is, consumers want to make commitments. Consumers want someone to step through the wall of noise and say, “Yes, you can trust us.”
Consumers want brands who understand who they are and aren’t afraid to tell them.
Consumers don’t want brands that are clamoring for attention, like girls wearing tops cut too low, or men, pants too tight.
Confidence comes from within. It exposes itself quietly.
People gravitate to it when they see it.
Perhaps in ’08, brands will understand that their strength lies in their essence, not in their exposure.
The odds are long.
But while the New Year is young, we still can, at least, hope.
Reach and frequency have had their run, their 50 years of fame, so to speak. They served the industry well and will be fondly remembered.
But as we enter this New Year, can we at least make the resolution to let go of the old and bring in the new?
I know it sounds simplistic, but to actually start doing something new, one simply needs to stop doing something old. Reach and frequency are old.
Next.
Unfortunately, sales, also a popular past determinate of effectiveness, can no longer be directly tied to the efforts of advertising. According to Deloitte’s Consumer Products Group, 62% of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet, with more than 8 in 10 saying their purchase decisions are influenced by such reviews.
What’s more, 80% of consumers trust brand recommendations from family, friends and “influential” persons over advertising and marketing.
While advertising still has a role, what that role is, certainly needs redefining.
In the meantime, it could be argued that advertising is becoming more impotent and less important every day.
Current estimates indicate that those who live in cities are exposed to somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 ad message on a daily basis. Considering that, at best, the average consumer may remember 4 of those messages, tell me, how does this make an advertising professional feel?
Important?
Hardly.
The rub is that as advertising becomes less effective, the need for great advertising becomes more extreme. The cacophony of choices that consumers are confronted with on a daily basis is overwhelming their capacity to distinguish one brand from another.
In some primeval sense, consumers are begging for clarity.
They want nothing more than for order to reign in the chaos. For brands to be strong and powerful. For their purchase decisions to be made for them.
Brands used to do that.
Not any more.
Instead, brands today pursue impressions over involvement.
Mass over meaning.
Short-term hits rather than long-term commitments.
But, the fact is, consumers want to make commitments. Consumers want someone to step through the wall of noise and say, “Yes, you can trust us.”
Consumers want brands who understand who they are and aren’t afraid to tell them.
Consumers don’t want brands that are clamoring for attention, like girls wearing tops cut too low, or men, pants too tight.
Confidence comes from within. It exposes itself quietly.
People gravitate to it when they see it.
Perhaps in ’08, brands will understand that their strength lies in their essence, not in their exposure.
The odds are long.
But while the New Year is young, we still can, at least, hope.
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