Looking at Data from Both Sides of the Brain – a Roundtable with Cathy Hetzel and Jonathan Bokor

The world of data is not that simple anymore. Not only do companies have to understand the tactical, logical application of a myriad of datasets, they must also be creative enough to derive actionable, often intuitive insights from the data crunching results. 

How does the confluence of logic and intuition impact the work we do today? In the first in series of DISH Network sponsored “virtual roundtables” with industry experts, MediaVillage journalists, Charlene Weisler and David Polinchock, posed questions to Cathy Hetzel, Executive Vice President, comScore, and Jonathan Bokor, Senior Vice President of Precision Video at Publicis Media, about a “right brain/left brain” approach to decision making.

Hetzel leads the strategic partnership team which manages comScore’s relationships with the MVPDs and publishers who provide the data that fuels comScore’s massive and passive cross-platform products. This requires both right brain (the ability to think creatively and emotionally) and left brain (the ability to think quantitatively and logically) agility.

Bokor leads the Precision Video Center of Excellence at Publicis Media, which takes a data-driven and technology-enabled approach to evolving television into a more precise medium to deliver improved performance for their clients. Their approach utilizes data to identify strategic target audiences that represent a more refined view of their clients’ true target.

MediaVillage: Do you consider yourself right brain (emotional / creative) or left brain (logical / analytical)?

Cathy Hetzel: I lean toward right brain plus logic … is that even “a thing”?

Jonathan Bokor: I would consider myself left brain dominant but with creative abilities as well.

MediaVillage: Do you think people can be both?

Hetzel: From my answer above, I do think people can be both.

Bokor: In my view most people do tend to lean one way or another, but I’m sure there are people who are close to evenly split, just like there are people who are ambidextrous.

MediaVillage: How is the data with Dish being used?

Hetzel: Dish has been a valued partner for more than 10 years - and was the first company to use our addressable measurement for cross-platform.  We aggregate Dish data with other MVPD data to provide local and national ratings. They were our first national partner, providing our television services with the opportunity to provide measurement in all 210 local markets. Dish was also the first company to use comScore for addressable television measurement and, recently, the first MVPD to use comScore for cross-platform addressable measurement.

Bokor: We have a preference for using 1^st party data when it’s available because it’s the best reflection of the client’s customers and, in general, tends to produce the best results. But we also see that 3^rd party data can perform well too.  Since not all clients have 1^st party data (or may not be willing to leverage it outside their domains), we utilize the best data available to us.  We also try to use attribution data whenever possible in order to gain insights into the effectiveness of our audience-targeted campaigns.

MediaVillage: What type of data is being used?

Hetzel: comScore uses second-by-second viewership data for both linear TV and addressable advertising.

Bokor: This varies by client depending on their objectives, what audiences they seek to target, and what KPIs they are looking to measure.  A wide variety of data types are used ranging from lifestyle/interest data, to purchase data, to TV viewing data to customer data.

MediaVillage: Will there be any attribution modeling with the data and, if so, how?

Hetzel: In combination with other data sources, comScore uses the Dish data for attribution modeling for both tune-in and advertiser-based attribution studies.

Bokor: We do attribution studies with most of our Addressable TV campaigns because Addressable TV provides us with data around which households saw the ad and we’re able to match that to attribution data where available.  Where sales data is available, and we can do a sales lift analysis, that’s usually the first choice, but we also do retail store visit analysis or website visit analysis where available and brand lift studies if that is appropriate.

MediaVillage: What do you think are privacy best practices?

Hetzel: comScore sees privacy protection as our highest priority with our partners. Our massive and passive measurement footprint includes more than 69 million televisions in more than 31 million U.S. homes. This scale, plus our projections for data we do not have – including OTA viewing -- protects our partner data from ever being exposed. And, to ensure the matched data is always protected, comScore uses a third-party match partner.

Bokor: All of our Addressable TV campaigns utilize a third-party data safe haven such as Acxiom or Experian to maintain the privacy of viewers, and we think consumers should have the ability to opt out of TV targeting.

MediaVillage: What do you see as the impact of creative on consumer response, especially in addressable?

Hetzel: Because comScore measures every creative execution at the exact commercial rating level, we are able to provide our clients, such as Dish, the information they need to be able to determine the impact of creative execution for every campaign. Creative is one of many elements of impact including pacing of ads, activation to the “most likely to buy” target and even timing of commercial assets that are measured by comScore.

Bokor:  We believe that using creative that is tailored to the objectives of the campaign are a best practice for audience targeting campaigns.  For example, if the goal of the campaign is to drive web visits, then the creative should reflect that.  However, custom creative isn’t always possible or available, so we can use the same creative that is used for the general market demo-targeting TV campaigns and we have found that we can still deliver lifts in key metrics using the same creative as general market.

MediaVillage: Is there a thought to creating a privacy "value exchange" for the consumer (what makes them happy you are using their data)?

Hetzel: That would be a decision to be made by our partners, not comScore. We provide a lot of value to our partnerships both by selling services to our partners and licensing the data that fuels our products and provides unmatched scale in our industry.

Bokor: It is a consideration that should be explored, but it is easier said than done.  Audience targeting usually carries a CPM premium which requires that it outperform demo targeting in order to make sense, so asking the advertiser to pay an additional amount to deliver a “value exchange” will require that audience targeting perform at an even higher level to justify this additional expense.

MediaVillage: What do you see as the long-term trends in data within the addressable ecosystem?

Hetzel: We ask we are hearing from our clients is to continue to focus on providing cross-platform unduplicated reach.  Getting cross-platform measurement right is our singular focus and the driving force behind what we do. Our aim is to provide unduplicated, comprehensive and objective measurement of content and advertising across any and every platform. We’ll continue to work with the industry to provide data at scale needed to measure viewership wherever the consumer chooses to watch content and advertising.

Bokor: The biggest trend I see is moving towards using the same targeting data across multiple channels and then uniting the data across those channels in order to deliver cross-screen reach, frequency and attribution.  This is a must for us because it allows us to more efficiently allocate our clients’ budgets to deliver the best results (as opposed to running siloed campaigns that don’t necessarily work together and communicate with each other). 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVIllage.com