Get Ready for the ARF Annual Conference on March 20th and 21st 2017

The ARF is holding their annual conference next week that will herald not only the arrival of new President and CEO Dr. Scott McDonald, it will also highlight the continuation and enhancement of three major research initiatives on mobile advertising research and the impact of advertising pod context.

New Leadership

According to the press release, Scott McDonald has held senior research positions at Time Inc., Time Warner, and Conde Nast, working closely with all five of The ARF's constituent groups – media, advertisers, agencies, research companies and ad tech. In a meeting with the press this past week, he explained that he comes to the ARF at “a critically important time for the media industry, partly because technological change has introduced at least a doubling of the number of consumer touchpoints available to marketers - many of which don’t involve media at all.  This has fundamentally changed how we think of ‘audience’ and has made the term more ambiguous and confusing than it was 10 years ago.”

He sees the ARF as focused on a range of issues from “methods for message development and understanding the consumer to highly technical problems of cross platform measurement, advertising effectiveness attribution and ways of integrating big data. These technical topics are very wonky but consume us because they remain unresolved problems for the industry.”

We are entering a complicated world where there are many challenges to the ad-supported media business model. He noted, “Going into the Internet of Things, you are going to have more and more marketing opportunities to connect with consumers in conditions that are devoid of media like on the fitbit, driving in your car, etc. The nature of advertising is changing in response to changes in technology and consumer behavior. Getting a clear view of consumer behavior and advertising impact has never been more important, more difficult or more complex.”

ARF Research Initiatives

As the industry gets more complicated, it is a great time for research. The ARF is continuing on some major research initiatives as well as introducing new ground-breaking work from member companies and suppliers. “One of the studies that will be talked about at the annual meeting,” explained McDonald, “is an effort by the ARF Research team, in collaboration with several of the member companies, to try to quantify the value of specific media context.  How is the performance of an ad affected – for better or worse – by its media environment?  How is it affected by the other ads around it?”

Jasper Snyder, EVP Research and Innovation outlined the continuation of three major research initiatives by noting that, “We have studies on creating effective mobile advertising, optimizing mobile research quality through the impact of emojis in mobile surveys and exploring the ROI impact of different types of context effects.” Previous How Advertising Works studies by the ARF have focused on the ROI of cross-platform advertising, and using neuroscience to understand how brands are built in the brain. “These studies not only quantified the impact of cross-platform advertising for the first time but also established, through neuroscience, the ways in which advertisers can optimize creative to take advantage of cross-platform effects," he continued. 

“Biometric and neuroscience measurement has proven that optimizing creative to a specific platform provides a great opportunity to boost ad effectiveness,” noted Dr. Manuel Garcia-Garcia, SVP, Research and Innovation, who added, “The challenge we face now is how to improve mobile ad creative so they are perceives as valuable and non-disruptive by the users.”

“One of the jobs of the ARF is to lead with quality research that is pivotal to the industry,” concluded McDonald, “Not only in providing quality research but also trying to provide conceptual clarity that makes it easier for all participants – media companies, ad agencies, advertisers and research companies - to be clear about where they are operating and which questions are being addressed.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

The Expansion of Measurement from Creative to Children at The ARF Conference

We talk a lot about data in media measurement these days but often in the context of improving the current measurement of usage. The recent ARF Measurement Conference, held last week, has begun to expand the range of measureable actions and audiences through the use of not only data, but also through advancements like neuroscience.

Taking on the Issues

There are many challenges in the market. “Ad blocking and fraud are big issues,” explained Fuguitt. And there are also questions such as the sequencing of ad messages cross platform. What is the optimal order? What is the optimal customization of ad formats across platforms? “Context is vital as timing a message to the consumer at the right time in the right place is everything,” she stated. How do we take big data and translate into emotional advertising? “We are offering audience measurement survival kits, because creating creative is more important than counting. We are measuring consumers’ feet. How do we make their hearts beat faster? Brands are built in the brain. We have fine-tuned quantification to neuroscience. We need to build emotional connections with consumer with unbiased research that finds and identifies consumer needs. We can’t take years to answer these questions,” she concluded.

CIMM’s Initiative to Measure Kids and Teens Cross Platform

CIMM, The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, has embarked on an initiative to solve the challenge of measuring kids and teens cross platform. Hampered by legislative, data, compliance and sample challenges, “it is even more challenging to measure for kids and teens than adults and the young are the future,” explained Marc Normand, VP Research, Disney Media Sales & Marketing. Why would CIMM embark on a kids and teens measurement initiative? Normand explained, “Imagine that when you start a family and you are at the hospital when the baby is born, you actually see room full of 18 year olds. That's what was happening in TV measurement. We are missing all of the growth.” Jane Clarke, CEO and Managing Director CIMM put it all in context and said, “We want to measure everything's that is happening in the household and attribute it properly. We want to capture usage on all devices in the house and measure as passively as possible.”

The first steps in the study involve 500 households. Starting small was important. “The data analysis challenge is something that you cannot imagine,” she continued, “Streams coming in via the router is a firehose of data. Making sense of it and attaching and linking from the source and time code is unbelievably complex challenge. It makes sense to start small.” As far as next steps are concerned, Rolfe Swinton, Chief RealityMiner at Reality Mine, stated, “The first phase is done. Next we will scale up and remove the check in process. We want to be clear about who is exactly watching but make it passive.”

Measuring Creative Using Neuroscience

The ARF has embarked on an initiative to measure the efficacy of creative using neuroscience. Dr. Manuel Garcia-Garcia presented the latest “neuroscience methods that can identify those creative elements that help to make advertising more effective.” What he found was that a unified creative approach that is cross platform and customized to each platform are “neural pathways to great creative. You can amplify consumer engagement if you customize your creative for the platform and don't simply repurpose it,” he explained.

His work also found that two platforms are better than one and that optimal sequencing – whether a TV message should be first or not – depends on the focus of the campaign. “We generally recommend starting with TV because if you start first with digital and then go to TV, there is less impact. But starting first with mobile is better if you are customizing your campaign for mobile. Mobile before TV equals higher memory. If TV is preceded by different platform the neuroscience suggests that there is higher brand consideration.”

Elements within the creative can impact viewer response. Garcia-Garcia explained, “A TV ad that explains benefits of the product or service results in higher purchase intent. And adding digital to TV raised brand consideration up three times. Your creative strategy is key to optimizing impact. In short, the platform does not determine strategy. The strategy should determine platform.”

Conclusion

As with past ARF Measurement Conferences, one walks away with new insights. This year it seemed that measurement has expanded its boundaries with new datasets and research techniques. Gayle Fuguitt, President and CEO of the ARF summed it up, “We need to be fearlessly facing forward. Media is being redefined and consumers want media on their own terms. We need to serve it up to them as they want it.” The time is now to take bold steps.




This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com
 

The Shift in the Data Discussion … Or Not? Questions From The ARF Measurement Conference

The annual ARF measurement conference is a time where researchers from across the media spectrum can gather, present and exchange their groundbreaking insights. As with previous years, one could walk away with a fuller understanding of the ongoing challenges our industry faces and acquire some actionable insights to help overcome them. And yet, this year was a little different in that the measuring of the creative, the sequencing of ad messages across platforms and applying neuroscience standards were also hot topics in addition to data. 

As with predicting the path of any changing environment, I came away with more questions. Here are some:

Demos Targets Are So Yesterday. Or Are They?

Instead of relying on demographic targets, why not use People Based Targeting segmentations? Dave Morgan, Founder/CEO Simulmedia, posed a provocative question and call to action, “Why are we sticking to inherently wrong protocols? We have to press the industry to do better.” Morgan then asked, “Have we started to make change?” Some, like David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President of CBS VISION, believes there is progress but it is slow.  “I think we are,” he said, “Look at the past year. There has been more progress in past 12 months than in past 12 years. But,” he cautioned, “We are not at the implementation stage yet. Advertisers are more comfortable about it than the agencies. It requires more manpower and systems need to change. This upfront people are doing the analysis and the learning and informing their buying. But the marketplace is still transacting on traditional data. The market is still demographically driven."

Could Reach Become the Measurement Standard?

If we start to move from age and gender proxy metrics, is there a way to either standardize segments or offer another standardize-able measurement? I believe that it will be very difficult to agree on standard segments which may even defeat the purpose of segmented targeting to one’s niche and unique consumer target. So agreeing on another, more standardize-able metric might be the solution. One suggestion was Reach, possibly Average Daily Reach which takes into account recency. According to Bill Harvey, CEO of Bill Harvey Consulting, recency is critical for the ad message to be more effective. “Advertising has most pronounced effect in first 48 hours,” he explained, “and average daily reach is the most critical test of recency.” Quoting the late Erwin Ephron, Harvey then advised, “plan and buy for continuous short term reach,” and concludes, “We as an industry should be looking at daily reach.”

Can You Measure and Push Creative Across Platforms Using Brain Activity Data?
Dr. Manuel Garcia-Garcia, SVP Research and Innovation: Global and Ad Effectiveness at the ARF, offered insights concerning the measurement of creative and how it should best be fed through the advertising funnel.  His neuroscience based insights include:

Ø  Customize creative for the specific platform. “You can amplify consumer engagement if you customize your creative for the specific platform and don't just repurpose creative,” he explained.

Ø  Two platforms are better than one. It increases percent purchase intent by 36%.

Ø  In terms of sequencing the messaging, generally start with TV. “We measure engagement through skin conductor response,” Garcia-Garcia said, “And if you start with digital, then go to TV, there will be less TV impact. But if you feed you ad in mobile before TV, that equals higher memory according to the neuroscience.”

Ø  TV messaging that is preceded by a different platform tends to get higher brand consideration.

Ø  A TV ad that explained product or service benefits resulted in higher purchase intent.

Ø  In adding digital to a TV raised brand consideration up three times.

Ø  Creative strategy is key to optimizing impact. “Do mobile first if the execution is customized to mobile,” Garcia-Garcia recommended, “But if your campaign is not there yet, start with TV when creative is being repurposed or is not unified.”

Ø  Finally, the “Platform does not determine strategy,” he warned, “Strategy should determine the platform.”

Which Way Forward?

Gayle Fuguitt, CEO and President of the ARF, energized the attendees with a call to action. “The time is now!” she exclaimed. “What are needed are fearless leaders to step up and not be afraid to ask the hard questions.” Much of what was presented at this year’s ARF Measurement Conference gives us lots of hard questions to ask. Let’s now resolve to work together to solve for the answers.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com