Should Publishers Be Selling Data Or Impressions Or Engagements?

The article written by Joe Marchese this week – Never Buy On CPM Alone - raises a lot of interesting questions. The primary one being who’s responsible for engagement in a video commercial – the publisher or the creative agency?

I think most people would say the answer is both. The publisher is responsible for delivering people to the message. The creative agency is responsible for involving people in the message.

And yet, engagement is usually talked about as something that is solely the responsibility of the publisher. So much so that the word “engagement” has been reduced to meaning clicking on the ad. VideoEgg sells on a cost per engagement basis. If a person clicks on the commercial, Videoegg makes money.

Fine. But is that really the best that we can do? Doesn’t the length of the engagement have anything to do with the effectiveness of the message?

Common sense seems to indicate that a thirty-second spot watched for thirty seconds delivers more value to the advertiser than a thirty-second spot watched for five seconds.

So, who then is responsible for the length of the engagement?

It has to be the creative agency, doesn’t it? If so, then why aren’t advertisers holding their creative agencies accountable for such? Why do they continue to pay their agencies the same whether the data says viewers watched, on average, 10% of the commercial, or 90%?

The key word in that previous sentence is data. And maybe what needs to happen is that publishers need to stop selling impressions or engagement or click-thru's and simply start selling data.

Raw, unadulterated data.

Advertisers will buy different sets of data for different purposes – sometime to hold their media agencies accountable – other times to hold their creative agencies accountable.

What publishers need to figure out is how to market their data differently. In other words, what publishers need are data differentiation strategies.

It’s not unlike how marketers sell products. They show consumers how to use their products in a way that delivers a benefit to the consumer.

Publishers need to be able to show how different sets of data offer different sets of benefits to their consumers – the advertisers.

Doing so will allow them to develop multiple revenue streams.

Something that is becoming more and more critical in this time of falling CPMs.

Digital Procurement

Word is that the Volkswagen of America business went to Deutsch last week rather than Goodby Silverstein and Partners because Deutsch was willing to cave into VW’s procurement requests and Goodby wasn’t.

Also last week, JWT pulled out of a pitch for the UPS $200 million global advertising account because of the drawn out financial and contractual discussions.

The situation is becoming dire as advertisers are becoming more willing to hire based on cost rather than the quality and the innovation of the work presented.

The assumption has always been that innovation and cost are on two opposite ends of the spectrum. In the past, when agencies could only be paid based on billable hours, this was more or less true.

In today’s digital age, this is less so.

The reason is that instead of paying agencies based on their hourly time sheets, advertisers can now pay their agencies based on viewer time sheets. A viewer time sheet consists of return path digital data that indicates how long a viewer was involved in a commercial for.

The longer a viewer engages with a commercial, the greater the chance to persuade the viewer why that product or brand is better than the competitors. In other words, the longer the view duration, the greater the chance the commercial has to work well for the advertiser.

Hence, shouldn’t the advertiser then be willing to pay their agency more for creating that type of commercial versus a commercial that garnered little viewer time spent?

Most advertisers I have talked with have responded affirmatively when asked that question.

Agencies are another story.

Except for a handful of exceptional creative shops, most agencies have answered in the negative when asked the same question.

That will need to change soon.

Agencies will need to come to the realization that they will be held accountable for results. The key is to base results on innovation and creativity rather than strictly having results tied into sales.

I would argue that view duration is a measure of innovation and creativity. Advertisers agree. It's time for agencies to come to the table.

The participation of procurement officers in the agency-selection process is only going to increase. Unless, of course, creative agencies suggest a way to be held accountable that isn’t tied to billable hours.

Using return path data as a form of digital procurement might be a good place to start.

What Makes Viral Advertising Effective?

Has anyone been following the viral commercial sensations that run online? Every Friday in Advertising Age, Visible Measures lists the ten top viral commercials.

What’s interesting is that there usually isn’t a commercial under the length of 60 seconds in the Top Ten List.

In fact, last week there was a five-minute piece that made the Top Ten List. Thirty-second spots and fifteen-second spots were non-existent.

Why is this? After all, the “experts” have been telling us that because people are in control online, the commercials will have to be shorter.

Except, it seems, for the commercials that people like and want to share with their friends.

“But wait just a minute,” I hear you saying, “just because it went viral doesn’t mean it will sell the product.”

And, you’re right. Just because a commercial is entertaining doesn’t mean it will be persuasive.

On October 30^th, OMMA is hosting a Video Conference in New York to discuss if going viral helps sell the product. The objective of the conference is to "clearly define success" in a viral approach.

If you register now, you can save some money.

I can save you even more right here.

If success is going to be measured in sales then the question shouldn't be how do you make your advertising go viral? Rather, the questions should be about how the message is crafted and the agruments presented.

Did the story that was told involve the viewer? After all, if the viewer’s not involved, it’s rather difficult to convince them why one product is better than another.

Did the story add some “value” to the viewer’s life for their time spent with the message? Was there a “fair exchange” of their time for something in return? A laugh. A feeling of joy. A nod of recognition. It could be as simple as information.

To go viral, a piece of advertising needs something besides a list of product features. It needs involvement on the part of the viewer. Involvement is what advertisers hire creative people to create.

If done by experts, persuasion and involvement go hand in hand.

If done by experts, the advertising will also go viral.

For those of you who attend the OMMA Conference in New York on October 30^th, see if this isn’t what they tell you.

Viral advertising, like any advertising, is only as effective as the message that it contains. Going viral is about the message, not the media.

Same holds true for sales.

Is Your Creative Director Worth $964/Hour If People Don’t Watch The Commercial?

The report out yesterday from the 4A’s reveals that chief creative officers at large U.S. agencies, on average, billed out their services at $964 an hour to clients in 2008.

At first blush, billing out anyone services at almost $1,000 per hour seems a little ludicrous. One thousand dollars an hour for a 40-hour week comes out to $40,000. That’s over $2 million for the year.

Really, is any creative director worth $2 million?

Surprisingly, the answer could well be yes.

And, what’s interesting, is that in today’s digital world, it’s easy to find out what a creative director's efforts are actually worth.

Digital technology allows advertisers to measure how long viewers pay attention to their advertising for. Did your thirty-second commercial engage the viewer for the full thirty seconds? Or, for just ten seconds?

Let’s say it was the former. Would that creative effort be considered to be more valuable to an advertiser than the latter?

Most advertisers would say yes. A commercial that involves the viewer for the full duration of the commercial has a better chance to persuade the viewer to buy the product than a commercial in which only the first five seconds were viewed.

It comes down to the old adage that you can’t save souls in an empty church.

A commercial that isn’t watch is less effective than a commercial that is watched.

The digital platform now allows advertisers to quantify the view duration of their commercials. So why aren’t advertisers paying their creative directors and their agency’s accordingly? Why do they continue to pay an enormous hourly fee with little regard as to whether or not the creative director actually did the type of work that deserved such a fee?

Why aren’t advertisers holding their creative agencies more accountable?

It’s not because systems don’t exist that will allow such accountability.

So why?

At almost $1,000/hour, it seems like a perfectly reasonable question to ask.