From Data Science to Creative. Highlights From the ARF ConsumerxScience Conference

Scott McDonald, President and CEO, ARF, is helming his organization at a pivotal time for research, data and analytics. Between the recent Cambridge Analytica data usage controversy, fake news, and the upcoming EU GDPR data regulation, the use of data and research insights are hot topics.

The annual ARF ConsumerxScience conference (previously Re:Think) brought to light new ways of measuring the consumer journey, understanding the psychological motivations of populations and brought forth, as McDonald pointed out, “A lot of conversation about the accuracy and validity of targeting data and, in the context of recent events, about the ethics of kinds of advanced data-driven targeting that are at the core of digital advertising.”

The Good and Bad of Data

Nothing has impacted the field of research as data has, “in ways both good and bad,” according to McDonald who added, “We have a lot more behavioral data to work with than ever before, but best practices are still evolving for the use of the data for insights.”  He stated that the growth in the amount of available data has outstripped tools for analyzation resulting in older consumer protection guidelines that have not kept pace. “There is some risk now of a privacy backlash that could restrict targeted marketing and cause collateral damage to research,” he concluded.

Where this all has to lead is more priority given to rules around data use and retention, “either through self-regulation or government regulation, more emphasis on data transparency (labeling) and validation (quality scoring),” stated McDonald. But he also believes that tools will continue to improve to get more insight value from data collected and this could lead to a better balance between classical research approaches and data science approaches.

The Influence of Millennial Men

With movements such as #MeToo, there has been less discussion about the influence of Millennial men who, according to Brad Fay, Chief Commercial Officer, Engagement Labs, are, “Surprisingly engaged as Influencers in the marketplace. They are an everyday source of advice and have expertise in a wide range of categories and large social networks.” These digital natives came of age during times of upheaval and have witnessed the backlash of trends.

Fay referenced with Jack Myer’s seminal book, The Future of Men, in concluding, “There's something different about millennial men.” He asked, “What does it mean to be male? The definition of masculinity is changing. We are reinventing masculinity. There are generational differences. Today’s young men struggle to figure out a path forward.” His research concludes that young men are avid consumers who talk about a range of subjects including media and automotives. But versus all men, younger men also talk more about food, finance, travel and even beauty products. Interestingly, they talk less about sports and technology than in the past. Fay offered the following insights: Men care about relationships. They want to see themselves as smart shoppers. They enjoy meal preparation. They still over-index in sports and beer but not as strongly as they used to. He advises marketers to “Start looking at young men that they haven't done before because they influence others. Think of them as a key asset though their social networks.”

Preparing for the Research Departments of the Future

Industry veteran David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President of CBS VISION, is concerned about where research is and where it is going. “We have big problems reach industry now,” he stated. “We embrace insights and now it is coming back to bite us. Insights are intuitive, not empirical. Intuitive means instinctual, what you feel. But Our business is based on empirical evidence and not intuitive.” His advice is to “reeducate our management… and get insights out of your title!”

McDonald noted that any disruption is scary. But Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS Television, embraces change. “Most people don't like change but we have to stay focused on the objectives. Data is useless without insight and our insights get better with more and smarter data.”

In terms of skills set for hiring, “Surround yourself with generalists,” suggested Subramanyam. “As individuals think of their career, they should amass more than one set of skills and find ways to harness all of them to business goals. As we staff at CBS, we look for people with skills and with curiosity.”

How can today’s researchers prepare for tomorrow? “Classic researchers need to go beyond the usual software and multivariate statistics and learn the approaches favored by data science.  Data scientists need to get better at understanding the domain specialties they study, and also the body of scientific work that they are addressing with new tools.  Both sides need a bit more humility about the limitations of their approaches and the value of hybridizing,” concluded McDonald.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Finding Solutions at the Attribution Accelerator Conference

The perfect attribution model, in my opinion, is a chimera. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t hold out hope for an industry multi-touch attribution model that, even if not perfect, is considered pretty good. This past week, executives from data and analytics companies to advertisers and content providers met to exchange pretty good ideas at the Attribution Accelerator Conference in NYC.

The conference strove to present attribution solutions for marketing measurement.  “Attribution is the hot spot,” stated Alice Sylvester, Partner, Sequent Partners, who added, “The development of a unified approach is taking place. We are now focusing on data and data quality and have a more practical, more analytical orientation this year.” But the path to a generally accepted attribution model may be further off than we think because of a fear of change in the industry which has relied on Mixed Media Models for decades and the walled gardens of data that have increasingly siloed and segmented data applicability.

Here are some takeaways from the Attribution Accelerator conference:

Challenges to Attribution

There are many reasons why it has taken so long for attribution to start to gain traction in the industry according to John Leeman, former CEO of Fresh Direct. Companies fear choosing the right dataset, upending the current business model or changing the decision set of marketers which results in less creative control and second guessing of their media choices.  And, once having instituted an attribution model, what if it’s wrong? “It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate to be valuable,” he stated.

But moving towards a prove-able attribution model is pivotal in this new media world of ever increasing consumer touchpoints that make the journey to purchase a meandering minefield. “Get over your fear- trust your gut, imagine, realize and just do it,” he concluded.

Finding Solutions for Advertisers

Many companies are tackling multi touch attribution head-on, striving for a real time model that might even incorporate media mix modeling, drive minute by minute allocation decisions and increase advertising agility. But there are many, many considerations that may vary by brand and by company.

Charlie Hilton, AVP Advanced Analytics for AT&T, noted that her company has been, “doing attribution for nine years. We are now shifting gears to true attribution and near real time optimization.” Her attribution methodology needs to take into account how all of the different media tactics interact with each other, how to quantify the precise combination of different touch points along the way and if advertising for one product impacts other products.

Kristina Kaganer, Director of Global Market Strategy, Coty, has product lines that span from discount to high end.  “Fighting for shelf space at Walmart involves different competition than when you are competing at Sephora,” she noted. Scalable attribution is her company’s goal and that requires the collection and control of pertinent data, technology that functions on the local level (which can differ depending on locality), the standardization of processes that can cross local markets, data storage and analytics. 

Finding Solutions for Media Companies

There are five keys to driving sales, according to David Poltrack, CBS Corporation Chief Research Officer and President, CBS Vision and they are Reach, Targeting, Recency, Creative and Context. “Few TV campaigns are tapping the full potential of TV,” he asserted. From untested creative, a disregard to context, a cost efficiency rather than a reach orientation and little attention paid to recency, advertisers are not maximizing the true value of television in a buy. “Digital is not going to replace TV,” he stated. “Advertisers and marketers must focus on getting TV right. TV is a reach medium and a combination of TV and digital is important. Understanding how to get that combination right is what attribution is all about,” he added.

Summarizing the results of a study with CBS, Leslie Wood, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Catalina Solutions noted that the fundamentals for advertising are as follows: Creative is the most Important factor, although media is playing an increasingly larger role. Reach is critical because only consumers who are reached can respond. Targeting has to focus on buyers of the product or service and Recency is vital because the value of exposure decays over time.

Finding Solutions for Measurement and Data Companies

Nielsen has always owned its own data. But in a world of first party data and big datasets, Nielsen is becoming more flexible and philosophical in how they acquire data and partner with other companies in the space. Matthew Krepsik, Global Head of Analytics for Nielsen, spoke of his company’s journey working across walled gardens. “We have the algorithm. We are good at the math. But it is not about building a better algorithm. The most important thing we can do now is to seek out better data.”

It is not a simple journey because, he noted, “every touch point can drive conversion. Shoppers are increasingly changing their behavior. They are becoming omni-channel digital natives and engaging brands directly.” Different products have very different purchasing cycles which make them multi-dimensional, multi-faceted and difficult for attribution. Nielsen is striving to tackle the de-duplication of devices so as to better analyze ROI, data hygiene and privacy compliance so as to insure an attribution model that better allocates marketing dollars

Attribution “is an elusive quest,” he concluded.  So too for us all.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
 

Age and Gender Measurement is So Over. David Poltrack at the ARF

David Poltrack, President of CBS Vision and Chief Research Officer of CBS Corporation, is the visionary who created the Campaign Performance Audit (CPA), an initiative on measuring return on ad spend. 

As Poltrack shared in a Media Village article I wrote last year,  CPA was first presented at the 2014 ARF and focuses on five components: 1. Test your message, 2. Maximize your weekly reach, 3. Get the most out of recency, 4. Precisely target your potential customers, and 5. Consider context.

After three years in the field, Poltrack and his team have completed the fifth component of CPA helping to understand creative in context. I met up with Poltrack at this month’s 2017 ARF to get an update about the initiative’s progress. Three key takeaways from my recent interview with him include:

      1.       Creativity in context holds great power for advertisers. Poltrack stated, “Can you create a contextual aura? I believe that there is great potential there.” 

      2.       TV in combination with Digital has the greatest impact according to CPA’s Return on Ad Spend analysis. It is not an either/or. “A digital campaign may be more effective if people have been pre-conditioned by a television ad first,” noted Poltrack.

      3.       The industry will move away from age and gender proxy measurements even faster than we think. And much of the movement will be due to digital data. “When the digital insights come together with the analytics, there will be a move towards a new way to transact business,” Poltrack concludes.

Charlene Weisler: What is Return on Ad Spend?

David Poltrack: It is the actual lift you get from advertising. It is all about attribution. One of the biggest challenges we all face today, with all the different elements going into what does or doesn’t make a successful consumer product, is that we have to figure out what is contributing what and what are the synergistic effects. That is what makes it really complex. A digital campaign may be more effective if people have been pre-conditioned by a television ad first. So I don’t want to cut the television advertising to find that campaign. I want to be able to understand how much that television campaign is pre-conditioning the digital campaign and vice versa. 

Charlene Weisler: Tell me about the recent updates on your CPA study.

David Poltrack: We have been working on the five levels. Now we have updates in all of these levels, the last of which was the impact of context. This was presented at the most recent ARF conference in mid-March. It shows that context does have an impact and different types of programming do create different contextual results. However, it also shows that it is relative to the reach of the campaign and that the creative elements of the ad itself are not a very consequential or significant part of the equation. That being said, this was being done on a general level; Looking at the context of a situation comedy vs the context of a drama, the context of a highly-rated show, the context of a low rated show. 

The bigger question is what if you create the context, as opposed to just looking at generic contextual issues? Can you create a contextual aura? I believe that there is great potential there particularly when you have people seeing ads while watching television and simultaneously having a phone where they could, for example, go into a virtual reality type of follow-up. Example: An auto ad runs on television on a sports show. Then there is the ability to link through the phone to a virtual reality site for people with the virtual reality equipment and experience that ad in a virtual environment. This is very powerful. It is all about how you create that context that enhances your advertising message.

Charlene Weisler: Can you talk about the trends in results that you have seen in your CPA study since it first began? Any big takeaway?

David Poltrack: The big functional elements of age/sex/demo surrogates are, once and for all, found to be not the proper tools in directing campaigns. Now, with usage based targeting and other elements, there are much better ways to select media. Notably, pricing is based on these demographics and so for these advertisers who use audience based targeting, it creates opportunities to find shows that work better in their plan but are even cheaper than what they have been buying.  It works with the current difference between the reality of targeting age and gender 18-49 and the reality of targeting on actual usage. Advertisers can get significant lifts in the actual return on ad spending by buying on actual usage. Over time as more advertisers buy on actual usage this lift may mitigate so there is opportunity right now to take advantage of this type of buying.

Charlene Weisler: What do you think it will take to move us away from age and gender proxy measurement to return on ad spend?

David Poltrack: At the rate we are going right now I think it will come very fast. You have to overcome the inertia. You have to bring together the new data analytics workforce with the traditional insights workforce. When the digital insights come together with the analytics, there will be a move towards a new way to transact business.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com