In these trying times, media companies are critical infrastructure, as more people are dependent on them to stay connected. Despite her busy agenda, Cox Communications’ Mallory Fetters found some time to tell us how to make insights more accessible within large organizations.
Mallory Fetters, Senior Director, Media Sciences & Campaign Performance, Cox Communications
Marketing research wasn’t on her short list of future professions when Mallory Fetters was younger, but over the years she found herself naturally gravitating to maths and analytics. “To me, research and analytics allows you to gain exposure and experience into so many strategic facets of marketing. It lets me flex my inquisitive muscles by digging into the ‘why’ and ‘so what’ behind advertising effectiveness. I gravitate towards opportunities where you can drive change, and marketing research presents those opportunities on a daily basis.”
Since entering the profession Fetters has witnessed its transformation, most notably through the emergence of new technologies. “Measurement has had to keep up with these trends, and in many cases stay ahead of it. I think we’re seeing that today with the growing regulations and restrictions on cookie tracking. For most advertisers, digital platforms are core to their marketing strategy, and it’s difficult to justify an investment unless you can properly capture its impact.” This is causing many market research companies and professionals to re-evaluate and future-proof their measurement solutions, Fetters observes. “I think we need to plan for the most extreme cases around data restrictions to uphold user privacy and embrace those changes. It’s not only critical to long-term business success, but it’s the right thing to do for our customers.”
Unique minds
Between 2014 and 2019 Fetters worked for Google. It was a time of many valuable lessons, such as always putting the user experience/customer first. Her tenure at Mountain View taught her not to fear failure. “Google tackles some challenging problems, and those are often uncharted territory with no roadmaps to follow. Sometimes you fail, but it’s what you do with those learnings that really matters.” Google also helped grow Fetters’ appreciation for diverse thought. “It’s truly amazing what a dedicated collection of unique minds with different backgrounds and skillsets can accomplish. Taking the time to tap into unique perspectives is an invaluable process that I try to bring to my current role as well.”
Last year Fetters was asked to join Cox as Senior Director, Media Sciences & Campaign Performance at Cox Communications. As the company continues to value the power behind data-driven decision making, they recognized a need to establish a new team within their organization. This team is dedicated to support an analytically driven unified media/message mix and comprehensive marketing investment optimization strategy. Fetters jumped at the chance to help deliver against that promise. Her team is responsible for acting as the primary measurement liaison across the organization, often spanning beyond marketing to broader customer engagement programs, such as new pricing and promotional strategies. “Our core function is to oversee analytics across mass and 1:1 media and creative efforts. We also partner with various internal and external analytic teams to help connect the dots across a variety of measurement programs. This enables us to craft comprehensive and cohesive assessments of what it means to effectively engage with and service our customers. Our goal is to present our strategy, media and creative teams with analytically driven, high-impact optimization opportunities.”
Key recommendations
Over time Fetters learned that by proactively soliciting feedback across core business partners throughout the measurement journey, research and analytics can become more integrated and relevant to their day-to-day decision making. She gives a few recommendations based on her experience:
- Launch each marketing program with an agreed upon definition of success across cross-functional teams.
- Align on the measurement plan upfront to ensure you capture a holistic assessment of performance that aligns to the agreed upon definition of success. This should be inclusive of the tools you plan to leverage, primary metrics and their associated success thresholds, and the identification of key decision dates to activate change based on the results.
- Play out ‘what if’ scenarios based on different result outcomes and decide upfront what actions you will take based on those insights. This will help teams quickly course correct or sustain effective activation strategies.
- Integrate additional business knowledge into your analysis and decision making. Measurement has limitations and is not always perfect. When used in combination with other business intelligence (data sets, industry/media knowledge, etc.), you can ensure that you’re taking actions based on a comprehensive set of insights, which often minimizes risk.
- Knowing your audience is key to finding the right balance between the how, the why and the so what of your findings. This may require a few different versions or formats of how you deliver those insights, but the time spent tailoring the storyline to your audience upfront will help expedite trust, credibility and acceptance of results and recommendations downstream.
Meaningful connectivity
Today’s rapidly changing media use presents an ever-growing need for consumer and marketing research to help organizations understand patterns over time. At Cox, these insights are critical to informing the business strategy. Insights resulted, for instance, in the Contour Stream Player, which gives customers more choice and control over their TV content, as well as the Homelife Care product, which offers 24/7 care monitoring, fall detection and other features to allow seniors to live independent and connected lives with peace of mind. “While our society is more connected to technology than ever before,” says Fetters, “we aim to inspire people to reflect on how they use technology to connect in a more meaningful way. It’s not just about offering connectivity, we want to advocate for supporting more meaningful human connections through technology. I love that Cox places such a high value on creating and enhancing human interaction.”
