NYU, ARF Set Second Year Of Marketing Insights Certificate Program

One of the biggest challenges in management today is finding the best candidate for any job opening and nurturing that talent as the job and the industry evolve. This seems especially true in the area of media and market research, where educational opportunities to train the next generation are rare and the impact of data analytics on traditional research protocols is upending the field.

To fill this void, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF)  launched the NYU/ARF Certificate in Marketing Optimization and Insights program in 2021. Virtual classes enable students to learn on their own time and at their own pace.

According to the ARF’s president and CEO, Scott McDonald, “On the job training is, unfortunately, not what it used to be. This certificate program upskills people and fills the training gap with instructors and guest lecturers who are anchored in the media/advertising field.”

The partnership with NYU provides the best academic approaches combined with industry expertise to offer companies an inexpensive yet highly unique opportunity to train and retain valuable employees.

McDonald noted that, “The program reinforces best practices, especially in areas where there is fuzziness. We establish a stake in the ground, developed by practitioners who are respected in their field.” In addition, the coursework is very practical and pragmatic. “All exercises assigned in each course occur in every job. It is designed that way so as to have real-world applications -- practical with pedagogical oversight,” he added.

The program has just completed its first year with 88 students from around the world. Twenty-two of the students have already graduated, having completed the required Foundations of Advertising Research course, along with three electives.

The students come from a range of top companies -- including Google, Chobani, Levi’s, CBS, Kellogg’s and The New York Times -- and from a range of job levels, from analysts to senior vice presidents.

Feedback from the first graduates has been very encouraging. .

"It was great to have instructors who are seasoned working professionals and so many accomplished guest speakers to add new dimensions and perspectives to each course," one graduate noted. "There’s always more to learn, but this program definitely helped me close some gaps in my knowledge and gain deeper understanding across a broad range of marketing research and insights subjects."

For McDonald, “the launch of this program in 2021 is arguably one of the good things that have come out of the pandemic. There has been a historical lack of good training programs and as people found themselves confined to their homes, this has been an effective way for them to keep their skill set up to date and expand their knowledge.”

Year two of the certificate program begins in February.

This article first appeared in Mediapost.

Recognizing Women in Research. Interview with ARF Erwin Ephron Winner, Alice Sylvester

In the world of research, women’s contributions are being recognized. This year, Alice Sylvester, one of the founding partners of Sequent Partners, has been recognized by the ARF for their prestigious Erwin Ephron Award. She is the second woman in its history to win it.

Sylvester is a research veteran. “I have spent my career in various roles across media research (including measurement and accountability), brand research (looking at valuation and measurement) and account planning (guiding insights and strategy for brands’ creative messaging),” she noted. Her work spanned advertising at Tatham-Laird & Kudner to J. Walter Thompson, Leo Burnett, Young & Rubicam and FCB to name a few. “I was also Chairman of The Advertising Research Foundation board, and co-wrote a book. And of course, I am currently a partner at Sequent Partners with Jim Spaeth, where I have worked on a variety of ROI initiatives, new media metrics developments and cross-media measurement for over 10 years,” she added.

Charlene Weisler: Why do you think you won the award - what work especially stood out?

Alice Sylvester: That’s very hard to say. First of all, I’m funny and people laugh at my jokes. I’m also a little brave and not afraid to ask questions to make sure I get it. But in all seriousness, like many others, I have been involved in some of the most challenging measurement issues the industry has faced (how advertising works, single source data, test marketing, marketing mix models/attribution, audience measurement, changing television measurement – STB, ACR), and now identity resolution, data quality, validation and activation. The industry has changed so very much, and become far more complex than ever. Throughout my career, I’ve played the role of translator – taking exceeding technical and complicated stuff and making it consumable by busy people who can’t, and don’t want to, spend the day deciphering what the science is trying to tell them.

Weisler: What is the most pressing issue in research today?

Sylvester: Nailing campaign reach and frequency, and controlling frequency. A lot of energy will be focused around these issues for a while.

Weisler: Is there a role for research in a media world of data?

Sylvester: Hard to separate the two. It’s all the same thing – using data and insights to plan and optimize media. Both will exist and have specific roles. Traditionally, research was about reliable, replicable insights and findings, standards, best practices, quality. And data was all about taming a firehose of raw anonymous data and turning it into something that looks like what we think the answer is. But you can’t have a media operation without research or without data. They live alongside each other in perfect harmony. Fueling different applications at times, having different purposes.

Weisler: What is the future of research?

Sylvester: The future promises to be a robust cacophony of experimentation and innovation and data-dependent.

Weisler: Tell me more about your work in attribution at Sequent Partners.

Sylvester: We’ve created provider guides to help people know who the main providers of attribution services are and how they distinguish their offerings and have shared methods and nitty gritty things about samples, panels, how they count audiences, data sources, validation approaches, etc. We’ve also done experiments for CIMM where we evaluated the accuracy of television inputs into attribution and provided some best practices and questions to ask. We’ve also performed training and shared best practices for attribution and marketing mix modeling for a large number of media, like OOH, Cinema, OLV, and we’ve run RFPs for marketers looking for new providers.

Weisler: Will we ever get to full attribution?

Sylvester:  Yes, one way or another. The promise of event-level, cross-media performance measurement and understanding the impact of touchpoints on the consumer journey is too strong to give up on because it’s hard. We’ll get there.

Weisler: How has the industry has changed over course of your career?

Sylvester: Significantly. We don’t drink at lunch anymore. And cable was just starting! That’s a long time ago. Now, there are more data scientists in the business than ever. We talk about outcomes and accountability, not just straight-up audience delivery. We used to deal with syndicated data sources expressly designed for measurement purposes. Also, today, people are much more open to a wide variety of data sources and solutions. They don’t need perfection – they need good enough in just the right time to impact decisions. That’s a big difference.

Weisler: What direction is the industry heading in?

Sylvester: The industry is hurling itself forward, in all directions, including forward and backwards.

Weisler: What gaps exist, what do we need to do?

Sylvester: We need a lot, as there is always room for best practices and careful consideration of whether data and research findings conform to the world as we know it, and for “show me how you know that” validation. We need measures of quality in placement and content. We need to know how much context and consumer emotion factor into attention and response to content and advertising. We need to know when we’ve hit the limits of commercial load (the number of breaks and the number of commercials) and we need to make sure fix “ad collision” – sending the same ad to the same person over and over.

We need to close the gulf between data scientists and media research/advertising people. We need to close the diversity gap and go into the high schools and encourage people to participate in the analytics and media industry. We need to continue making it a great place for women.

Weisler: Where do you see the media landscape three years from now?

Sylvester: Maybe more consolidation – streaming services, analytics providers, identity providers, data services – increased comfort with a multitude of data sources rather than reliance on one for all audience and measurement needs. Some solutions to privacy legislations will be tested – some might work by then.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

The ARF’s Paul Donato Reveals the Path and Speed of Industry Change in Research

Even before the pandemic, the media industry was changing, evolving and adapting to frequent disruptions.  The ARF recently fielded a study called Organizational Benchmarks Study: The Advertiser Report, that reveals insights into these changes. Paul Donato, Chief Research Officer of the ARF, explained, “Research departments are changing rapidly, especially as machine learning and AI are displacing more traditional research skills.” ARF members were asking how other company’s departments were changing and adapting to the new reality. 

To help answer members’ questions, the ARF conducted an online survey of more than 450 industry professionals, half of which were at the Director level or higher. According to Donato, “That would include what they are calling themselves, department structure, skills needed, techniques used and stakeholder satisfaction, to name just a few of the dimensions measured,” and he added, “We will be repeating this survey every year and offer member companies customer studies that benchmark their departments to the overall study.”

Top Findings

- Research department reporting structures varied by company size. The study found that larger advertisers are more likely to have a decentralized structure, while small advertisers tend to be more centralized.  Decentralization tends to lead to a fragmented approach to research requests. Donato noted, “While almost all advertisers (92%) go to a department called consumer research/insights, larger advertisers are more likely to have a decentralized research structure (53% vs. 30% of smaller advertisers) and turn to additional departments for market research and insights, such as the marketing or strategy/planning departments.”

- Notably, according to Donato, there is greater dissatisfaction with decentralized departments. “Advertisers with decentralized departments were less satisfied, which tends to occur with larger advertisers. So, variables related to advertiser size would also be related,” he explained.

- The report found that reporting structures for research departments tend to report into a wide variety of other departments, from marketing to product development. However, Consumer Research/Insights and Data Science/ Analytics were the most frequently reported.

- Departments responsible for research functions tended to have a range of names. “We came across hundreds of names,” Donato asserted, “Most frequently, it is a compound form of research: media research, market research, or consumer research. There were also variations of Data Science/Analytics.”

- Spending for Research hadn’t essentially changed at the time the study was fielded in October 2019. “Spend was more or less normally distributed than the year prior,” he stated.

- When it comes to research KPIs, Sales is the most important followed by Brand equity and Brand lift.  

- Advanced analytics/statistics is the top technical skill sought after for advertisers at both large and small companies, followed by basic analytics skills like Excel and brand storytelling.

Looking Forward

This report is the first of a five-part series, with subsequent benchmark reports focusing on agencies, media, research companies and consultancies, to be released throughout 2020, according to the ARF. Unfortunately, since the survey was completed in October 2019, it doesn’t include any questions about the pandemic. But questions will be included in the next survey.

Donato offered his insights into what the next study wave might reveal. “Some in-person research will be affected such as focus groups or face-to-face research,” he noted, “That being said, research and insights will be more critical than ever as businesses try to navigate this unprecedented time of uncertainty.”

The temptation to restrict advertising during an economic downturn is understandable but Donato warned, “All our studies suggest that advertising during a recession makes the brand stronger at the back end of the recession. Moreover, going dark can take a brand three to five years to recover. To the extent that requires research on new creative messages, new media plans and marketing plans, there is still need for research. What marketers will do remains to be seen.”

The ARF Reveals Their Plans for 2020

With research, data and insights commanding media attention today, an organization such as the ARF must keep pace and help their membership understand and navigate the impact. The ARF is well prepared for this task. Its mission is, according to Scott McDonald, CEO and President, “To further, through research, the scientific practice of advertising and marketing.” 

The ARF recently revealed their plans for 2020 to strengthen, “All of the industry C’s – Content, Credibility, Creativity, Consumer and Community,” explained Deborah Kim, Director of Sponsorship and Business Development. The meeting, held in the NYC offices, showcased the full range of 2020 initiatives including new and expanded ways of funding research projects, clarifying and prioritizing initiatives, detailing upcoming projects and revealing a full roster of upcoming events for 2020.

With 400 corporate members ranging from advertisers, agencies, media and research companies, the expectation is that the ARF must be, “The standard bearer for unbiased quality in research,” stated Michael Heitner, Executive Vice President, Member Needs and Value. 

ARF Focus for 2020

McDonald explained that, based on feedback from the membership, the focus in 2020 revolves around content – how it is consumed, tracked, measured, made more effective and valued in the consumer journey.

One of the most important improvements from 2019 is the increased financial effort to support such an all-encompassing initiative. “We are here to help members make smarter decisions and to let us know how they want the funds to be allocated,” he noted. To that end, he established a member driven agenda to drive thought leadership. Now, 10% of the larger corporate membership dues in 2020 will be committed to fund original research, up from 8% in 2019. In addition, smaller companies, once priced out of participation, can now also affordably contribute to the effort.

But how does one start to map out the priorities? “We asked what kept people up at night,” McDonald said and they came up with the following seven areas of need:

    >  Data, Analytics to Insights. How we can leverage data for insights.

    >  Ad Creative

    >  Media Measurement

    >  Marketing Measurement and ROI

    >  Future Methods and the Evolution of Technology

    > Teams, Talent, Training and Organization including how to blend small and big data and how to hire and train new talent

    > Consumer Science and the issues of Privacy. The choices of platforms to source content.

Overseeing these priorities is a Leadership Committee made up of a dozen member companies from across the media spectrum from networks to brands to research companies that, “reflects the diversity of stakeholders in the ARF,” and, added McDonald, “will have a direct hand in setting the research agenda.”

ARF Research Priorities for 2020

For Chief Research Officer, Paul Donato, the ARF’s seven councils will help to focus and drive the overall agenda. The councils relate specifically to the ARF-identified seven areas of need and include:

    >  Analytics - the emerging issues related to the integration and analysis of big data.

    >  Cognition – how advertising works from both neurological and survey based perspectives.

    >  Creative – tools for creative and research.

    >  Cross platform measurement – supporting better cross platform planning and MRC efforts.

    >  Cultural effectiveness – effective marketing strategies that target diverse multicultural and generational groups.

    >  LA Council/TV and Video Content- better measurement to track viewers changing video consumption, recommendation engines, promoting content and program resting.

    > Social – A guide for social metrics and a better understanding of measurement and effectiveness.

ARF Outreach for 2020

But all of these efforts would have a limited range were it not for the many conferences, webinars, salons and outreach efforts to encourage participation, solicit feedback and showcase the results.

The ARF offers a range of sponsorable events throughout the year including one of my favorites, AudiencexScience, to be held on April 19-21, 2020 in Jersey City. There are also more targeted conferences planned including ShopperxScience, SportsMarketingxScience, OTTxScience and DataxScience, all held in locations across the U.S. The ARF also integrates within other conferences such as ARFatAWNY and SXSW while also awarding exceptional research and researchers with the Great Minds Awards, the Erwin Ephron Demystification Award and the David Ogilvy Award. 

In 2020 Kim noted that the ARF is introducing Ogilvy 360, a year-long effort to highlight the findings of the award winners with a Young Pros Event, ARF Salons, Webcasts, regional events and website case studies. “There are benefits of partnerships with the ARF,” Kim concluded, including, “raising the presence among influential thinkers, enabling members to differentiate themselves as a forward thinking company, build on trust by supporting an organization that is appreciated for unbiased quality, enforcing rigorous  standards, methodology and transparency and fostering connections and community.”

It looks like the ARF will be very busy in 2020!

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com