The Increasing Role of Data in Strategy in a Post-COVID World

Who could have imagined several years ago that data would play such a pivotal role in our industry? Today those companies poised to succeed in the media ecosystem must have an understanding of data and how it can best be used to inform decisions. 

At the recent 4As StratFest, a panel moderated by Raig Adolfo, Chief Strategy Officer at 360i discussed the increasing role of data in a post-pandemic world. Panelists included  Jennifer Clark, Brand Experience Practice Lead, Dentsu, E.T Franklin, President, Global Strategy and Cultural Fluency, Spark Foundry and Jonathan  Ricard, Senior Vice President, Resonate.

The Creative and Data Dynamic

One of the biggest trends is that data is making its way into all forms of decision-making elements, including creative. “One thing many people are grappling with is striking the right balance between creative intuition and data intelligence. Sometimes these elements are one and the same and sometimes they contrast and conflict,” began Adolfo who added, “The future is when these two side work symbiotically.”

How can the ephemeral, artistic aspects of media coincide with the structural quantitative aspects of data?  For Franklin, there is no dichotomy. Data is vital and has created a dynamic where, “Intuition is supported and informed by data.” She explained that, “In our industry we know that data is critical. We have to be able to understand how to size. We have to understand where the trends and the information are going and where are the opportunities and challenges are. Data helps clarify those things for us in ways that are precise and allow us to solve for things that are very specific and clear.” But balance is vital in the decision-making process. She warned that there is the risk of having, “an over-reliance on big data. It was all about the data telling us where we needed to go and what we needed to do.” A balance needs to be achieved.

Applications of Data to Inform Creative

When it comes to creativity and data, one can inform the other but each needs to be valued in its own space. “There is a concept of data-driven authenticity,” noted Ricard. “You are looking for facts. You are looking for insights that drive the ability to have an authentic conversation.” He believes that this approach has to drive the creative. “We could say ‘I think this is important’ shaped by our individual lens or perceptions. You have to validate that,” he explained, through data. “There has to be a data-driven approach to it.”

But for Clark, “Creativity should not be stifled by data. Data can be the foundation of a great idea but it typically serves as the foundation.” Sometimes it leads the effort as in Spotify where the data leads the creativity, “but that is rare,” she explained. “Often it is taking a human insight and amplifying it. You have to find that nugget that feels right and build on top of that. That’s when you will not break that creativity.”

Examples of the Value of Data

Clark described an Oreo campaign where one morsel of data revealed and informed the entire campaign narrative. “Data can be very small,” Clark noted, “One of my favorite campaigns was the Oreo Vote. The Oreo campaign started with a tweet which was ‘Who Will Save the Oreos?’ which was a small, tiny piece of data that someone picked up on and sent, ‘Wow this is interesting’  and started to look at the other data that the community was saying and built it out to a campaign.”

Franklin, when looking at data, strives to find what she called, “the sparks. You’ve got all of this information but what is sparking something you didn’t think about or a feeling of curiosity and make you say, ‘hmm’. And the other thing I think about with data is, where is the humanity? ” Make the explanation of data simple and understandable, “as if you are talking to your Grandma.”

Don’t rely on a sample-of-one to forge your insights. “We are all going into this work with our own lens and biases,” stated Clark, “You can get caught up in what you as planners think is the truth without examining what other people outside of the universe of what we do are thinking, saying and doing.” In talking to real people, for example, she was able to learn that consumers confused electronic vehicles with self-driving vehicles. It was by only talking to consumers that this important insight was revealed.

The Difference Between Data and Insights

“In any piece of data, if you can’t answer the ‘so what?’ then you probably don’t have an insight,” explained Ricard. “It’s interesting today to be thinking about persuadable audiences in what we think of as media bubbles.” The question is – how do you find the people within these media bubbles that you can persuade? “We know this population isn’t homogenous but we don’t know necessarily how to reach them. Data might be all those things like demographics, ethnicity, media consumption but that doesn’t necessarily indicate what they care about. That doesn’t give you that human element that is going to spark change.” You have to go from an understanding of facts (the data) to a fuller understanding of motivations and elements of persuasion (the insights). “A powerful, authentic response,” he concluded, “that could be driven by intuition.”

Conclusion

The conclusion through the panel discussion was, don’t be scared of data. “Data can feel and sound intimidating,” Clark admitted, “But think of everything around you is data. All of these inputs. Don’t get caught in needing secret big insights. Use your heart,” she advised.

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

 

The 4As Examine Media Measurement Priorities at Advertising Week

There is strength in numbers. And I don’t just mean that in terms of all of the data being gathered and transacted upon in our industry today. I also mean it to suggest that we need to work together - from networks to agencies to the range of other media oriented businesses - to finally solve for cross platform measurement.

The conversation on cross platform measurement has been going on for over a decade through the work of several media organizations. But, frankly, these were often siloed efforts that gathered fleeting attention and struggled for cohesive industry action... until now. The push for an industry standard cross platform measurement is not only gaining momentum, it is also consolidating efforts across cooperating media entities.

As part of Advertising Week, the 4As hosted a panel titled “Media Measurement Priorities” that covered the joint efforts of leading industry entities to facilitate cross platform measurement and to decide, as an industry, what media measurement needs to look like in this new media environment. “What we have now really doesn’t fit the bill,” noted Louis Jones, Executive Vice President, Media and Data, 4As. 

He added that, “We need to have a collaborative point of view,” that also takes into account the needs of agencies. From there, the 4As set out to coordinate the efforts of companies and organizations working on the issue and published a whitepaper titled, Media Measurement Priorities,” as the first salvo.  

The paper set the stage for discussion of the most important priorities from an agency’s perspective. 

Here are the top five:

      1.       Unduplicated Reach

      2.       Currency

      3.       Short term versus long term

      4.       Walled garden and identity graphs

      5.       Attribution

Agency Perspective

Even for these top priorities, there may be flexibility in the solution. Take, for example, Currency. Historically, the TV industry has transacted on a strict set of metrics for currency. For Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group, “We are in a world that is complicated enough that if everyone had access to the right underlying data, different partners could agree to trade on different metrics and that would be okay.” His point was that agencies seek impressions on specific target audiences and the way these impression are valued may vary across different platforms.

For Ed Gaffney, Managing Partner, Director of Implementation Research and Marketplace Analytics, GroupM, the currency just has to be well understood, transparent and stable. “We can have multiple currencies,” he explained, “We have them now,” with digital and TV and even within TV there are a range of metrics. “As long as everyone knows how they are counted, and can use that data, for both sellers and buyers, it works well.”

For Gaffney, Unduplicated Reach is critical to address waste. But the barrier, according to Steuer, is that the measurement currency for TV “is based on volumetrics and not real humans” and is delivered, “on the aggregate and not the individual. We need a census to tie together and understand device delivery to actual humans.”

Industry Perspective

In addition to agencies, there are businesses and organizations that are deeply involved in the measurement discussion. The MRC has been pivotal in establishing cross media measurement standards. George Ivie, Executive Director Media Ratings Council, explained that the MRC has been involved in a two year effort resulting in a brand new industry standard for video that was just released in early September. Three hundred 300 people and 175 companies participated. “There was a lot of discussion about measurement of exposure and how important it is as a building block to understand who saw your ads and how many times they saw it and the ability to de-duplicate,” he noted.

This standard provides the framework for equalizing the exposures across platforms and de-duplicating it across some general principles: Establishing a  common set of granularity, second to second level starting with counting impressions and then equalizing them as much as possible across the various video outlets, viewability, measurement and requiring invalid traffic and fraud filtering, the ability to measure people – demographics and targets – completes and duration weighted view of impressions so as to measure how long the viewable conditions persisted.

The reaction from the industry was both accepting and guarded. Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS, noted that measuring, “viewability is a good thing. Nobody wants invalid traffic. Duration is important. But the devil is in the details. Implementation versus theory – there is a big gap there.” Brian Smallwood, “Different advertisers are going to want to transact on different measures. This (MRC report) is one way of standardizing it but there are other parts of the ecosystem that want to trade or operate differently.”

If you ask me, an effort that has created the foundation for the trans- corporate cooperation today has been through CIMM. This organization has been working on universal content labeling to help stitch together content on various platforms and devices through Ad-ID and EIDR. Without a UPC-like code, there is no industry wide way to insure that content is accurately being captured wherever it airs. Jane Clarke, CEO and Managing Director, CIMM, noted.  “It is an evolving time in television and we don’t have a granular, nationally representative impressions-based TV measurement system in place right now,” she explained, because the data is siloed, behind walled gardens and not shared.

But, as there is strength in numbers, the first powerful step has now been taken. “The tech environment innovates. Technology improves. The standard is a first step in a long journey,” Ivie concluded.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Getting With The Programmatic At The 4A’s

The challenges facing the advertising agency business model are many. Luckily, media conferences, like 4A’s Transformation, exist to help make sense of this ever-changing landscape. This year’s conference provided an opportunity for advertising, technology and media leaders to come together and exchange insights in order to maximize programmatic opportunities.

Mary Barnas, VP of Platform Adoption at Videa, started her career on the agency side where she was responsible for managing local media departments. Her transition into the programmatic space allows her to stay in touch with fellow media buyers, as she currently drives partnerships with agencies and advertisers through Videa’s programmatic solution. “I spent 20+ years on the agency side managing local media departments. I understand the challenges there,” she says.

Mary gave further insight by answering the following questions: