Tracking the Consumer Through Location Data

The availability of location data through mobile has become a boon to marketers who are interested in tracking the consumer journey to purchase. Verve, a programmatic mobile display firm located in NYC, recently released their latest findings on the state of location data.

The Value of Location Data
In a world that is increasing headed towards audience segmentations, location data adds a bit more nuance to our understanding of consumer behavior. The ability to map movement patterns, store visits, time of visits, the quality of a visit (whether the dwell time is too long for a convenience store or too short for a car dealership, for example) and the relative value of the visit applied to the budget, all form a view of the consumer that goes beyond demographics, psychographics and segments.

According to eMarketer, 74% of North American marketers polled said that location information is a key element in understanding why and how customers interact with businesses. Further, 65% agreed that mapping the offline customer journey provides actionable insights on consumer behavior, intent and brand affinity.

How to Use Location Data
From a marketers’ perspective, location data can be used in real time or as a post-campaign assessment. For those who create several versions of an ad, push notifications at the point of sale have seen some positive results. According to eMarketer, 36% of mobile app users said they’ve made an in-store purchase after receiving a location-based push notification. For those who use location data as a post- assessment, 91% of marketers say that it has increased their understanding of their audiences.

The Verve report suggests that marketers follow these steps in using location data:

• Investigate the data quality. Make sure it’s verified.
• Use the data only when it adds relevance. Not all campaigns require location data.
• Know what you want to achieve by using this data.
• Map out the true trade areas and how consumers reach the point of sale. Trade areas rarely resemble a circle.
• Think about the best moment to send the message. Sometimes it’s not while in the store.

Cautions in Using Location Data
In a time of increased focus on consumer privacy, the gathering and use of location data must be approached carefully and with transparency. Consumers are increasingly concerned about how their data is gathered and used. Only 13% of consumers polled in an eMarketer survey feel that they have control of their data, are asked for permission and can make a conscious choice about how their information is being used.

Ultimately though, marketers are positive. “Location data will continue to grow and be adopted in more of a business intelligence way,” concluded, Michael Liu, Director of Mobile and Innovation Strategy, Carat USA.

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.

Out Of Home or In Home – The Consumer is the Same According to the DPAA

It is easy to see how different sectors of the media industry are converging when one attends a series of conferences over the span of a fortnight. From Television Week’s selection of panels to the Livefronts for streaming video to, most recently, the DPAA, it is evident that while the modes of content delivery may vary, the opportunities and challenges to the various business models are sounding eerily similar.

The DPAA is especially interesting because while it has always operated in out of home media consumption, the digitization of content has moved it squarely into the vortex of cross platform content competition. Barry Frey, President and CEO of the DPAA, noted the change in the business by stating, “Content is becoming even more important. What use to be paper and plastic is now digital.”

Attention (On Any Platform) is the Holy Grail

Rich Greenfield, Media & Tech Analyst at BTIG, noted that he is “seeing a meaningful change in behavior. We are spending life looking down - staring at our phones. Engagement has shifted from the TV to the phone and that is wreaking havoc with the legacy TV ecosystem. There is a fundamental shift in behavior.” So engagement has become at once vitally important and increasingly ephemeral. According to Greenfield, because of the vast choice of content on demand, “We are better at maximizing the utility of our time than ever before.” And while there is a shift in power, with TV possibly becoming a secondary platform to mobile, massive change will not happen overnight. “It will take a while,” admitted Greenfield.

Challenges Are Universal – From Metrics to Ad Length

There is nothing quite as vexing as trying to formulate a more relevant measurement metric for cross platform while legacy measurement for legacy media (ratings) are declining. “We can talk about the fact that ratings are down a lot but engagement is down a lot more,” stated Greenfield. “So what do you do? Mobile hasn't figured out how to create a robust viewing engagement. How do you monetize Facebook live?” he asked.

The effectiveness of commercial formats will differ by platform. Thirty second spots may be too long for viewers using handhelds and the timing of ads within content can be a sensitive decision for advertisers. Greenfield wondered, “Do you cut away to commercial? Do you overlay?” How can we create opportunities for new forms of advertising in a world where consumers are not getting the same level of engagement? And it’s not just the format and placement. It is also the creative which poses its own set of challenges. “Society at large is very distracted. And they can't really multitask because attention drops,” according to Bonin Bough, Host for the Cleveland Hustles.

Corporations are Re-focusing their Goals

Challenges are leading to a corporate reassessment. Whether an agency or an advertiser, the proliferation of consumer choices heats up competition for attention and fuels the need for companies to refocus. Doug Ray, CEO, Carat explained that, “We are a media agency and have to start to think of ourselves as an audience and people based agency. The way people are engaging with content is not linear anymore. Viewing video is at an all-time high. So we now follow the consumer to help us bridge this disparate ecosystem and help our clients sell more product.” But agency clients are often enmeshed in legacy thinking. “TV is still the greatest driver of sales contribution but there has been an erosion of its contribution over the past several years. And we will continue to see the erosion of results for our clients,” he noted. “The answer,” he continued, “is to start thinking more about people. Audience first; How to find them, how they engage with screen and how to measure the success of that engagement.”

Conclusion

The industry moves slowly and, arguably, too cautiously. In this era of accelerated change we must not only be nimble but also strategic. As Lou Paskalis, SVP, Enterprise Media Panning, Investment and Measurement for Bank of America, concluded, “We need to measure what matters, understanding what is relevant. Diagnostics like reach and frequency won't get us there anymore. The return is in relationship not the transaction.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

The Question of Cross Platform Metrics

There are two major research issues facing the industry now and both of which are gaining traction in the Research sector as evidenced by the attention they received at the recent ARF 7.0 Insights Conference.

One is how we define television with the question being, “Is it the television set that forms the basis for the US TV Universe or are sets no longer the best base on which to measure the  ability to receive ‘television’ content?” The other, a corollary to the definition of TV, is “What are the best cross-platform measurement metrics to use for the media industry?” Are there certain functionalities that work best for one platform that do not translate across platforms or can we come to an agreement for a standardized cross platform metric that captures all viewing and usage to give us a 360 degree total?

The recent ARF 7.0 conference in June offered an opportunity to explore all of these issues in greater depth. In asking industry researchers at the conference about the best cross-platform metrics, I found a range of opinion from Nielsen’s Leslie Wood who said “It already exists. It’s advertising response” to TRA’s Bill Harvey who said,”ROI is the key deciding factor” to GroupM’s Lyle Schwartz who doesn’t think there is a singular metric for any medium. While there could be baseline metrics across all media such as reach and frequency, Lyle believes that there is an additional need to create specialty metrics based on the specific attributes of the content platform. 

Carat’s Billie Gold had another opinion. She said “there is no definitive common metric to measure cross platform viewership since both mediums are different in nature. However the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings product, used in conjunction with its existing television audience measurement capabilities, is the closest we can get to true cross-platform measurement at this time. It is not an exact comparison, but we’re definitely getting closer towards an acceptable comparison.”

Jane Clarke from CIMM explained that there was interest in the creation of a single source, scalable measurement system and perhaps a move away from pure demographics to “targeted exposure metrics.” But there was also the opinion of ESPN’s Glenn Enoch who said that a single source application may not be possible and the solution may be to create a calibration hub where existing datasets can be fused. And with second and third screens of various sizes, Richard Zackon of the CRE posited that it may be necessary to take into account the size of screens as part of the measurement criteria. 

These are all valid and intriguing thoughts. Here is a short video on all of the responses collected at the ARF 7.0 conference:

In my opinion, the question of the perfect cross platform metric may slowly evolve towards a standardized solution as connected TVs filtrate through the population. Since these television sets can use IP for program delivery, the measurement criteria for “traditional” television may eventually evolve and coalesce into IP measurement.  Until then, it will be interesting to see some of the creative applications that are developed for cross platform total measurement.

Q&A Interview with Billie Gold - Carat

Billie Gold, VP of Research and Programming at Carat, has a unique perspective on the media landscape. After entering the industry at MTV in the early days of cable, she followed a path that led her through the agency world. In this fascinating interview, Billie talks about how she got into the media business, how agency research differs from network research, the future of multi-tasking, the upfront and how the media marketplace will change based on the new 2010 census figures. Billie also offers some perspective on set top box data, social media, cross platform and what makes a network program valuable.

The six videos of the complete interview are as follows:

Subject                                                Length (in minutes)

Background                                               (6:47)
Network Criteria                                        (8:04)
Unmeasured Networks and STB Data      (3:51)
Carat                                                         (8:11)
Cross Platform, Social Media                    (6:34)
Predictions                                                 (5:59)

Charlene Weisler interviews Carat's VP Research and Programming, Billie Gold who talks about her background in this 6:47 minute video:




Billie Gold, Carat VP of Research and Programming, talks to Charlene Weisler about how a network can get more attentiona nd considerationf rom an agency. This informative video is 8:04 minutes.




Charlene Weisler interviews Billie Gold who discusses unmeasured-by-Nielsen networks and the use of set top box data to assess network performance in this 3:51 minute video:




Billie Gold talks to Charlene Weisler about a range on new technological subjects such as Cross Platform, DVRs, Mobile and Social Media in this 6:34 minute video:




Charlene Weisler interviews Carat's Billie Gold who talks about some future trends and predictions in the media landscape. This video is 5:59 minutes:

Q&A Interview with Shari Anne Brill - Carat

Shari Anne Brill has received many honors in her research career including WICT’s Wonder Woman award as well as a Media All Star award in 2009. She is one of the leading researchers in the media research field today with extensive experience in agency and brand work. In this video interview, Shari Anne shares her insights into new technologies, the CRE Mapping Study, “Digital Boomers”, CIMM, the future of measurement, how research has changed and how the entire media industry has changed.
There are four videos in this fascinating interview that cover the following topics:

Subject Length (in minutes)
Background, Agency Research (4:25)
Past Changes, CRE, CIMM (6:30)
CRE Mapping Study (6:55)
Set top box data and Privacy (6:54)

(As we go to press, Shari Anne Brill is no longer with Carat.)





Charlene Weisler Interviews Carat's Shari Anne Brill who discusses her background and how agency research has evolved. This video is 4:25 minutes long:




Carat's Shari Anne Brill talks about past changes in the industry, her work with the CRE and CIMM. This video is 6:30 minutes long:




Charlene Weisler Interviews Carat's Shari Anne Brill who discusses her work on the CRE Mapping Study and some surprising results. This video is 6:55 minutes long:




In this final video, Shari Anne Brill talks about television content, set top box data and consumer privacy issues. This video is 6:54 minutes long: