Guaranteeing Attention by Tracking Eye Movement. A+E’s Roseann Montenes and Dentsu’s Cara Lewis Show Us How It’s Done.

The burning question in this media age of fragmentation is, does the current currency measurement capture true consumer behavior? More and more, networks and agencies are looking for metrics that are more precise for the KPI. This led to a fascinating and successful collaboration between A+E Networks and Dentsu to calibrate, measure and post against viewability for an ABI campaign.

“Our clients are continually looking for different ways to measure campaigns in marketplace and making linear TV as smart as it can be beyond the traditional behaviors that we have,” Cara Lewis, Executive Vice President Head of US Investment, Dentsu - Amplifi, explained.

First Steps and the Pandemic

According to Lewis, “ABI came to us. They have a partnership with the TVision data that we used for this test. They asked us to propose a partnership with networks to guarantee on viewability data that they have. TVision has eye tracking devices in 5000 households.” A+E stepped forward to be the first network to guarantee on viewability eye tracking impression data which can register exactly when eyes are on screen for at least two seconds.

As for timing, “I think the pandemic slowed us down,” stated Lewis, because the project hit a pause during Covid.  “We were on this path of auditing how to get there and talking to the vendors. It then took a bit of a back seat. But then, overall, we just picked up right where we left off,” she noted and added that it may have impacted adding other networks to the study. Roseann Montenes VP Precision + Strategic Audience Sales Partnerships, A+E shared that, “Even as we were noticing the ratings erosion, we were still able to get positive results out of the campaign. We were able to see a lift once we optimized against ABI’s historical data through TVision. We were still able to see improvement against every single network in our portfolio even in this challenging time, we were able to find positive results.”

Challenges and Opportunities

“There were a ton of challenges,” admitted Montenes. “To be very transparent, Cara and I started this conversation in March 2020 and we started to go down this path to figure out the feasibility. When we are working off of a panel size that is so small, it’s hard to get that confidence in stability. Do we trust that this small of an audience to actually give us the results that we are looking to accomplish? What are we getting out of this?”

But A+E is known for driving innovation and the opportunity to test case, as she explained, “Guaranteeing against metrics that mean the most to our clients, really interested us.” The risk was worth it and now the study is in its second wave and the partners are trading on this currency. “It’s proven, especially to us at A+E Networks that we really do believe that finding different metrics to guarantee off of is something that drives partnerships even further. Now, next time when Cara has an opportunity of a different metric that she wants to guarantee off of, maybe we will again be one of the first ones she comes to with it.,”

Successful Execution

As a result of the study, A+E was able to establish a new baseline and new benchmark with the agency. According to Montenes, “If you think about the way we traditionally do business, we have a starting point and for years, we traded off of CPMs. But now all of a sudden we were trading off of a new metric. So it took a lot of time to come up with that new benchmark and that new confidence level in guaranteeing off of a viewability score.” Her team analyzed historical information and attributed the new data to ABI specifically. They were then able to come up with a new scoring metric that could lead to tracking towards a guarantee. “We went to the highest potential possible so we could push our boundaries to over-perform and over-deliver for this first campaign,” she stated.

“GRPs are important. But there is obviously waste in the impressions that we are buying. So to make sure that the impressions are more viewable, and that is by using this data, was the main part of the structure of the campaign as well as making sure that the data was viable so that we could then build it out across the ecosystem,” Lewis stated.

Delivering Results on the KPIs

Among the KPIs for the campaign, “One was to get the campaign greenlit and guaranteed,” Lewis explained, “The other one was to see an increase or incremental lift in the overall viewability percentage. The third was to get a like-minded client counsel; We’ve been having a lot of client conversations across the Dentsu clients, many of whom have said they want to see how the test goes.” In addition, it was important to be able to build it out and make it scalable across the media landscape especially within linear TV.

The fourth quarter result, according to A+E, was a 7.6% lift. There has been a second campaign in first quarter and they are in discussion for a third campaign for second quarter. “We want to show our clients that it is a viable way to guarantee,” Lewis concluded.

For A+E, “We were the first to announce three years ago that we were the first to guarantee on business outcomes,” stated Montenes who added, “We are not slowing down in the space. We are going to continue to make sure that we are talking to the right audiences at the right time at the right places. Next steps for us and ABI is to continue to do everything we can to help them rise.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Brave New World of True Accountability. An Interview with A+E Networks’ Roseann Montenes

Can we ever get away from the antiquated demographic guarantee?  According to Roseann Montenes, Vice President, Precision and Performance Advertising Sales, the answer is a resounding YES! And she should know. 

Montenes is one of the forces behind A+E Networks’ MVP (Multi-Viewing Precision) initiative, a system that moves marketers from legacy metrics to true KPI accountability.

Convincing the Industry

But there is something a little unnerving to advertisers about moving from the comfort of demographics to true accountability. “It is essentially like moving a small mountain,” she admitted. “You have clients that are so used to doing business one way since the dawn of time. It was almost like when we made the shift to C3 and had to get clients into that mindset,” she added. The shift began to occur after, “tons of education, tons of case studies that demonstrated to clients that they could take the demo guarantee out of it and focus on who their true audience is.”

The first step is to, ”prioritize all of the client’s KPIs to see what matters most. Is it targeting households that have anyone from adults 18-49 in it? Or, is it targeting someone who is in-market to purchase a new vehicle?” she explained. The answer is usually to move product. “At the end of the day, that’s what matters most. That is how we started to change the conversation.” And yet, even with this great effort, it took a full broadcast year cycle to get a client onboard, comfortable and then implement.

How MVP Works

MVP offers marketers true cross platform optimization. But how does it actually work? “What we do is take a strategic target audience and optimize through our Precision platform, which is our linear arm, find the audience there. We then do an optimization on the digital side through our Digital Precision offering and then we blend those two plans together,” she explained. “We allow the client to have full access into the allocation of impressions within the linear and digital arm and then it is figuring out the balance.” Notably each campaign is monitored by hand to carefully consider how each spot, whether linear or digital, contributes best to the KPI goal. Both the linear and the digital teams are in constant contact to make sure that the overall plan is on target.

Delivering the KPI

What is the most meaningful metric to offer in place of demographics? For A+E Networks it is viewability. “We just did our first guarantee against attention measurement in fourth quarter,” noted Montenes which was based on attention measurement through partner TVision. She added that MVP has the ability to ingest any data set. “Our management doesn’t limit us to what kind of datasets we can partner with. Any third party dataset, we can onboard an advertiser’s own first party data onto our platform and any other standard, generic, statements whether it is a Polk dataset or MRI. For those advertisers who don’t have their own strategic target in place, they can come to us and we can help them create one,” she explained.

To craft a plan, MVP enables a drill down, “to the sell title level, to the half hour level. This allows us to make those in-campaign optimizations based off of the pacing of whether it’s our attention measurement or a guarantee against a business outcome, or whether we are optimizing against reach or a particular strategic target,” she stated. This enables the network to maximize the value of all of their programs, regardless of demographic performance levels. “There are no two programs that are equal when you are talking about a customized strategic target,” she noted, as opposed to being able to compare programs based on demographics which are more standardized but less targeted.  

Impact of the Pandemic

With one major advertiser on board, the teams at A+E networks have been able to monitor a full broadcast year worth of MVP performance. “Now that we feel comfortable and know that it works, this is something we are going to bring to other clients as an opportunity to change the total outlook of currency and how to trade off of it,” she assured. Of course the landscape has changed since fourth quarter 2019 with the pandemic but a marketer could successfully pivot… and should. Montenes explained that, “For a really long time, we were all about foot traffic into store locations, dealerships and into family dining establishments. Once Covid hit, we felt this sense of ‘oh no’ now that foot traffic has stopped, because you are not allowed, how do you reimagine what a partnership looks like?”

After the initial sense of panic due to the pandemic dissipated, “it quickly fixed itself,” she stated. So instead of actually dining in a restaurant, consumers were downloading the app. “We switched the conversation and KPI to be reimagined and looked at differently. It went from foot traffic to app downloads and foot traffic to conversions.” Notably in some cases, the advertiser still wanted to deliver on foot traffic.

Going Forward

For Montenes, there is a new normal for media now. “Clients have gotten a peek under the hood in terms of what their business could look like. There is now efficiency in seeing the world that once was and measuring it in the world that now is. How can you go back to the way it was before now that we see what the new world actually looks like?” she asked and added that she is very optimistic about the future. “It’s exciting to see how much has changed since last March. It hasn’t changed for the worse. It’s changed for the better,” she concluded.  

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

 

 

Xandr's Jill Siegel: Relevance Is the Right Way to Reach an Audience

“It all comes back to KPIs,” noted Jill Siegel, Assistant Vice President, Business Intelligence at Xandr, “what is possible, how we can deliver and how we can best advise our clients.” Her team recently released the second annual Relevance Report which leverages Xandr’s unique cross-section position in the marketplace between consumer and advertiser. “Because we already have the consumer connection and the content, for us, it’s all about the best solution for everyone,” she explained. 

According to Seigel, Relevance is defined by meeting a consumer’s needs in a moment in time and evoking an emotion. The combination of all three elements presents a powerful pull on the engagement of the consumer with the ad, resulting in not only more satisfaction for the consumer but also better results for the advertiser.

2019 Study Objectives

This year’s study presented an opportunity to solidify baselines that were established in the previous study as well as gain a deeper understanding of relevance and consumer trends. Seigel realized that, although “everyone is focused on what will be the next innovative thing,” the study also needed to answer the basics:

     Ø  What do we need to do to get consumer attention?

     Ø  Does it have to be a six second ad that can transfer across screens?

     Ø  Is it something that takes over the entire experience?

     Ø  Is it something that needs a true one minute experience?

     Ø  What is the impact of an ad-free environment?

For the consumers, 2,000 adults were polled across all age ranges in a representative U.S. sample. “We wanted to see the age break differences. That was key to understand what is coming next,” she explained. For the marketers “We were evenly distributed across in-house agency brands and in-house marketers with $1 million+ in investments in any video.”

The study focused on the convergence of digital and TV as the best solution for advertisers, understanding that true convergence could happen within the next two years. In this scenario, cross platform measurement will be critical to answer questions, as posited by Seigel, “How do you count everyone who is watching? How do you make sure that every impression counts?”  

The Concept of Relevance

One big takeaway was that, “it was not necessarily about the platform or about the ad format. It was about the relevance of the ad itself.” She added, “At the end of the day relevance is the key driver to how receptive consumers are to advertising.” This is a pivotal finding because often, in the pursuit of innovation, companies can lose sight of the importance of relevance as a connector to the consumer. “It still needs to be a good experience for the consumer and connected to their interests.”

The study also found good news for advertisers. “Consumers are not anti-advertising or pro-content,” she noted. “They are actually very receptive towards advertising, especially because it underwrites their content experience. They know that is what is supporting the content they like and that is how they are getting their content at a subsidized cost. Advertising helps them.”

The Concept of Time

In addition to relevance, “we were also fascinated by the concept of time and how the concept of time has changed. We might possibly be at a peak point,” she revealed. Nielsen has reported that viewers are spending over eleven hours a day with media which is a small gain from last year. This may indicated a saturation point as there are only so many hours in a day. “The reason we think that is interesting is because we are maxing out and cannibalizing other time.” She gave herself as an example. During her commute, she no longer listens to music. Instead, she is listening to podcasts which “is a different way to reach me.”

2018 to 2019 Study Comparisons

Because the media ecosystem seems to be transforming fairly rapidly, one might expect big changes in the study results year to year. However Siegel found that, “for the most part people are using the same products as they did in the past.” But this year, the focus of the study shifted to platforms and formats, leading to additional behavioral insights. “Last year was about taking the temperature,” she explained, “this created our baseline for what was considered relevant and understanding people’s engagement.”

Perhaps the real value of the study is its ability to parse all of the important factors in consumer consideration. “It used to be all about the creative. And that is huge because all consumers want great creative. There are high expectations for high quality creative. But we are also finding that the focus now is how to best target and audience. It’s not just about the creative. It’s how to best reach their audience,” she concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Cross-Screen Measurement and the Impact on KPIs

For an advertiser today, there is nothing more important when buying media than accurate cross-screen measurement to ensure that what is bought delivers on the KPIs. The question is, what are the most important and relevant KPIs today in TV advertising? Of course there are the traditional TV currencies of reach, frequency, rating, and delivery, but industry standard cross-platform KPIs are still being formed. In fact, these may vary depending on the advertiser, the product or service, the platform, and the content provider.

Read the full article here.