The ARF AUDIENCExSCIENCE virtual Conference, September 21-23 underlined why media and ad research have never been more important notably in our exploding digital media world. Its coverage of a wide range of topics and research findings provided value and avenues to embrace and explore for advertisers, their agencies, and the media. Many of the insights related to programming content and creative execution.
Here are some of the top-line highlights from the 3 days:
Cross media measurement
Artie Bulgrin, Project Manager, Association of National Advertisers, ANA and formerly SVP, Global Research ESPN, and ‘Project Blueprint’ fame, formally announced the ANA’s initiative to develop “Cross-Media Measurement” in the US. It will be based on a common currency to be determined that will enable true campaign reach and frequency to be analysed across platforms.
The ANA’s final approach will conform to the international principles recently proposed by the World Federation of Advertisers, WFA in their Technical Design proposal and will be compliant with Media Research Counsel, MRC, standards. It will also respect consumer privacy regarding the extensive, complex database created that will feed the measurement methodology.
This Gordian knot of cross-media measurement, harmonization and comparability has been wrestled with from both the technical and business perspectives my entire career. The Blue Ribbon panel of discussants did not respond to the question, “Will you establish a Joint Industry Committee, JIC, perhaps out of Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, CIMM, based on ANA’s final XMM specifications, such that all the major global video measurement companies can fairly bid on the execution to those specifications?”
Little surprise that the cross-media measurement common currency “challenge” came from Britain courtesy of Neil Eddleston, MD, JC Decaux One World and Mike Follett, MD, Lumen UK. Their presentation which preceded the ANA’s, was founded on the position that, ad viewability (so called ‘viewable impression’ in the US) is not a media currency but merely a pre-requisite to the ability by a consumer to actually view, notice or pay attention to a properly rendered ad. They suggested it is essential for advertisers, their agencies, and the media sellers to trade on ads “viewed”, possibly including dwell time. As such any cross-media currency should not be based on, “maybe”, “could be” or “might be” seen (or heard) just because it was rendered on a device to specification.
Is “attention” the “truth” as a cross-media measurement metric being sought by the WFA in collaboration with the ANA and Institute of British Advertisers, ISBA in the UK? The ARF’s, “Towards Better Media Decisions” monograph is unequivocal on what constitutes the purest media audience measurement – Ad (or content) exposure. “Attention” the next measurement level up in the ARF model of effects should not be used due to the confounding effects of the creative message – not a media attribute as such. Stay tuned!
Attention
The “Multiple Dimensions of Attention” were revealed based on very sophisticated lab testing of video ads by Dr. Duane Varan, CEO, MediaScience and Nicole Hartnett, Senior Scientist, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Measuring attention is extremely difficult and requires 12 different technological techniques that offer a relatively high degree of accuracy. Measuring inattention is much much easier. The study, which will be replicated in a simulated real viewing environment, identified significant improvement in key brand measures for high attention ads. So, attention matters but it is multi-dimensional.
An extensive comparative study examined the ability of the same ad to generate and keep attention across different devices: smart TVs, PCs, Tablets, and smart phones. It was executed via GfK’s Ad Fit Optimizer under the leadership of SVP, Jon Brand who stressed that understanding what drives consumer’s attention, “is the Number One challenge” in an environment of commercial avoidance that produces, “a sharp decay in engagement”.
Attribution models
Sequent Partners in collaboration with Janus Strategy & Insights, offered an eye-opening but not surprising presentation based on a thorough review of TV Attribution Models and their data inputs. Attribution modelling is a “hairy” technique in the best of circumstances. The outcomes measure (ROI by platform) from the various model’s analysis of the same campaigns were substantially different in most cases. The conclusion? These models are essentially flawed! This important assessment was sponsored by CIMM and the full paper is available on its web site.
Commercial interruption
Dr. Varan teamed up with Jeff Boehme, Director TV &Cross Platform Research, comScore, to share their findings regarding “commercial interruptions”. If interruptions were limited, based on their research, it would have huge benefits to broadcasters, advertisers, and consumers. In a significantly more limited commercial interruption environment, based on HH tuning data (which would likely underestimate person by person avoidance) unaided brand recall can increase as much as 50% with aided recall increasing ~20%. As Dr. Varan stated, “Ads cannot be effective if they are not processed.”
Gender equality measure scores
Nadine Karp McHugh, President SEEHER, at ANA and Jennifer Pelino, EVP, Omni Channel Media, IRI, shared a clever, data intense, research approach that determined sales lift across an array of brand powerhouses, based on the level of the ad’s Gender Equality Measure, GEM score for the portrayal of women and girls in a brand’s ads. The results were conclusive in that the highest sales lifts were associated with the ads that had the highest GEM scores. IRI went one stage further and studied the programming environment carrying the ad for their GEM scores. When both the brand’s ad and the programming carrying it had high GEM scores the incremental lift was 93%!
Audio ads work!
In “Connected Cars” Sasha Wolfe, Head of Media, Taco Bell demonstrated that audio (radio) advertising works and can be made more effective. Research findings indicated over-indexed radio dayparts – notably mid-day and certain format preferences for in-car “hearing”. They are based on an initial research pilot in Columbus, Ohio with the co-operation and “connected car” data from an unexpected partnership with GM plus geofencing local store locations. GM claims to have ~50% of 4G LTE enabled vehicles on the road.
The necessity of building brand equity
Last year’s ARF Conference presentation by Les Binet, DDB London, and based on his seminal report, “Effectiveness in Context”, emphasized the importance of long-term branding campaigns encompassing broad high reach because they consistently generate more memorable impact among other key brand attributes. Dr. Abby Mehta, SVP, Bank of America, BoA, took that presentation to heart and embarked on an extremely difficult longitudinal tracking study of customers at the respondent level (fully privacy compliant).
Her presentation, “Why Driving a Strong Brand Still Matters”, examined how perceptions and attitudes towards the BoA brand related to customers banking decisions and therefore to business outcomes. In a world where there is a clear lack of confidence in the competence and ethics of companies, the saying, “people will buy from people they trust” appeared to be a key to building brand equity.
Underpinning that concept are opportunities for companies to genuinely address environmental, social, and even government issues. The tracking study unequivocally indicated that those customers with the lowest brand perceptions had the lowest revenues for the company and the highest attrition rates. Consequently, building the brand via meaningful and relevant key issue strategies to drive “value” to BoA customer’s lives offered the power to make a difference for all parties in the most mutually beneficial manner.
This is a highlights summary of Commentaries published by Media Post September 22, 23 and 24, 2020: ARF AxS Day 1, ARF AxS Day 2, ARF AxS Day 3
