Attribution Accelerator - What to Expect?

The annual Attribution Accelerator conference is gearing up for record attendance next week. What can we expect? What have been the advancements over the past twelve months? Sequent Partners who are the event organizers created the Attribution Accelerator three years ago because they realized that the industry lacked a forum that focused solely on attribution. Attribution has become a much bigger issue for cross-platform measurement. There is still a lack of transparency and, as of yet, no industry standard approach. 

“Our event helps the industry get smarter about attribution, by shedding light and providing guidance, as well as encouraging best practices and development in the necessary areas,” stated Jim Spaeth, Partner, Sequent Partners.

This year, the conference will discuss how attribution is impacting activation and helping marketers manage ROI rather than measure it.  Panels will address how brands are represented in attribution, technical innovations (such as AI), creating a unified model with marketing mix models and how attribution is impacting television optimization. 

Panels to Watch

The ARF is heading a panel called, “Innovation - What’s Next and Will We Love It?,” which will explore what they have learned on the innovation frontier and how the latest developments can drive greater business performance, with a look into the future. According to Scott McDonald, President and CEO, The ARF, “Some of the topics we will discuss include: how AI can be used effectively to solve attribution problems, how precision targeting and unified modeling can improve, and the move from the lab to broad implementation in the real world. We will also examine whether to build or buy when it comes to innovation and how to build an appetite for risky innovation in a risk-averse corporate culture.”

Leslie Wood, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Catalina Solutions, explained that her panel will cover a recent Nielsen study titled, How to Build Brands which “is our most ambitious research project to date, generating 6 billion rows of data for 50 CPG brands. One of the key learnings is that there is often a  disconnect between the intent of the creative message and the resulting purchase behavior of the audience. Advertising to consumers who don’t respond, wastes your media dollars. Advertising to the right consumers drives sales and growth.”

The importance of attribution cannot be underestimated. David Ernst, Vice President, Advanced Television and Digital Analytics, A+E, noted, “Most advertisers know that TV is a powerful, brand-building medium.  But now, through the use of large data sets and advanced analytics, we can demonstrate its true effectiveness by having a more precise understanding of how and where it works best.”  In his session, he discusses how attribution has the potential to change the dynamics of the television marketplace and why more clients are looking to attribution to get specifics about their goals, what they’re trying to accomplish, and make sure that campaigns deliver on their promise. He will also share his perspective on where attribution is headed going into the future and how they will approach the marketplace in exciting new ways.

“Attribution is continuing to gain traction in the marketing community, with new applications available to demonstrate the productivity of Television. It’s use is evolving from providing insights to delivering very specific analyses regarding the effectiveness of Networks, Dayparts and even programs. This is enabling us to have conversations with clients about productivity and expectations for individual campaigns on our networks,” he concluded.

 “Media companies like CBS are ready, willing and able to partner with their clients on measuring outcomes,” says Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS.  “At the same time, we are in a time of transition when it comes to attribution.  While there are lots of options today, TV attribution still remains an emerging and evolving field with no clear leader to date.  The good news is that early efforts by multiple companies all prove the same thing.  TV advertising works incredibly well.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com