Feb 21, 2013

Q&A Interview with Mike Saxon - SymphonyAM



Mike Saxon, SVP Advanced Media at Symphony Advanced Media (SymphonyAM), is an advertising effectiveness maven. His background includes stints at Nielsen//NetRatings, AIG and Harris Interactive. Now at SymphonyAM he is active in re-designing cross media measurement through the use of passive data gathering. In this fascinating interview, Mike talks about digital internet measurement, the importance of ACR (automatic content recognition), the challenge of out-of-home measurement, SymphonyAM initiatives in cross platform measurement and offers some predictions of the media landscape over the next few years.

Launched in late 2010, SymphonyAM is a media research and data technology firm that measures integrated cross-media consumption and resulting behaviors, enabling advertisers, agencies and publishers to optimize media strategies and maximize advertising performance. SymphonyAM has built a single-source panel of Android and iOS smartphone users; panelists download a mobile app that allows for passive tracking of TV, online, mobile and social. Interested in developments in passive media measurement, The Coalition for Innovation in Media Measurement (CIMM) is currently working with SymphonyAM to test the effectiveness of cross-media campaigns for three national advertisers.


The six videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                                Length (in minutes) 
Background and Next Generation         (5:33)
SymphonyAM                                      (7:10)
ACR                                                        (6:37)
Privacy, Target Demo                          (5:38)
Panel, OOH Challenge                        (9:09)
Predictions                                           (2:41)


Charlene Weisler interviews SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon who talks about his background and the next generation of researchers in this 5:33 minute video:



CW: Mobile measurement is still evolving. What is SymphonyAM doing in this area?

MS: SymphonyAM is focused on mobile insights in three areas: 1. Media Measurement: We are tracking smartphone and tablet usage of free, paid, and earned media. This includes mobile apps, mobile web, and social media. 2. Advertising Measurement: We are capturing both search and display ad exposure, as well as keyword usage on search apps and search web pages and 3. Mobile’s role in the purchase funnel: we are linking our mobile search and display data with purchase data, to help understand how and where mobile facilitates consumer purchases.

 

Charlene Weisler interviews Mike Saxon who talks about SymphonyAM and its unique method for cross platform measurement in this 7:10 minute video:



Mike Saxon of SymphonyAM talks to Charlene Weisler about ACR in this 6:37 minute video:




CW: What are the issues you face with cross platform measurement and what is your solution?

MS: As we’ve built out our cross-media advertising effectiveness business, it’s become clear to us that methodologies that rely on natural exposure to digital media have limitations. Part of the issue is sample. Getting enough people in the target demo to fill control and exposed groups for a single media is already difficult. Once you add on a second or third media, natural exposure becomes nearly impossible. Another part of the issue, which has existed for a long time, is that behavioral targeting negates the assumption that the control group and the exposed group will respond similarly to advertising. By design, the exposed and control groups are different. The conventional solution, holdout samples are costly to implement across multiple media of a campaign. Our solution is Media Plan Simulation. We have the ability to serve mobile ads in-line with a panelist’s normal mobile usage. We can replace the ad that would have run on a particular app, or mobile website, with a test ad of our choice. We can also suppress ads, and serve a control ad to a panelist who might have naturally received an ad from a running campaign. This technology also works on PCs, and we will be rolling that out later in the year.

 
CW: How will it be implemented?

MS: Using this technology, we can create test and control groups across multiple media based on whatever rules are appropriate for the campaign. Exposure could be based on demos, on apps used, on websites visited, or survey responses. This allows us to use a much smaller panel, since we can force exposure rather than wait for natural exposure. Cross Media Plan Simulation brings Cross Media Ad Effectiveness out of the land of the exotic, and into the world of the practical.


 
Charlene Weisler talks to SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon about the privacy issue in Big Data measurement and target demographics in this 5:38 minute video:




Charlene Weisler interviews SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon who talks about panel based measurement and the challenges of out of home measurement in this 9:09 minute video:


 


In this concluding video, SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon offers some predictions of how the media landscape will evolve over the next few years. This video is 2:41 minutes:

 
 

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