ARF Re:Think 2014 Celebrates Research

Why is this year’s ARF Re:Think different from other Re:Thinks? For one it is Gayle Fuguitt’s first conference as chief of the ARF. For another, there has never been so much great research presented, at one time in one conference.

The media landscape has seen an explosion of viewing content possibilities. And Media research, with the increasing amount of Big Data intelligence, has become the epicenter of business performance solutions. Which is why having events like Re: Think are vital to get the issues and measurement solutions out into the media ecosystem.

This year on Day 1, the focus was on cross platform measurement solutions, impact of mobile and social media datasets to understanding today's consumers and their media usage. Day 2 was on creative strategy and Day 3 was dedicated to the next generation of researchers and how to fortify career paths.

There are several important industry priorities in my opinion including cross platform measurement, integrating big data into currency measurement and preparing the next generation of researchers. I polled several top researchers at the conference and asked them what their top research priority was and the range of their answers was significant. Here are their responses:

In the area of cross platform measurement, Project Blueprint, now in phase two, is positioned to become a standardize-able way to combine the measurement of television, tablets, mobile, computers and radio into one measurement platform. Brands are “looking to get better measurement across all touch points and combinations to optimize investments” according to Amaya Garbayo of Kellogg. But the industry is still fairly silo’ed. MediaVest’s Jeff Chaban said that cross platform measurement, “is not where it needs to be but we are making significant steps.” Artie Bulgrin of ESPN, a major supporter and contributor to Project Blueprint, is experiencing success in monetizing cross platform for his networks. He said, “ESPN is an outlier in that 80% of our deals are done on cross platform.”

In the Big Data realm, there are advocates who see the vast potential of unlimited datasets containing media usage, consumption and shopping collected and combined to produce meaningful, insightful and actionable results. There has been a lot pf press about using STB data to help political campaigns win elections. Allant is partnering with Comcast Spotlight to using STB data to pinpoint voters on a hyper local level. Allant’s Eric Schmitt noted that it is “interesting how quickly political campaigns adopted the techniques (of using big data in their campaign targeting). They see success and jump on it…. Political is spurring (STB data use in) other industries.” Announcements like the TIVO / Symphony AM partnership that combines STB data with passive audio app media usage data adds to TIVO cache of data including Fourthwall, TRA and shopper data.  All of these big data sets combine to form a clearer picture of viewer to shopper ROI. But we need to do more. Lee Garfinkel of Draftfcb believes that we are “not using new world of data to its full potential. 90% of ads have been mediocre and still are.” Yet Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus DDB spoke for those who believe that we could get carried away by the sheer enormity of big data. “There is a difference between big data and a big idea. The haystack is now so enormous we can't find the needle or we find something that is not the needle.” Obviously great data interpreters and data story tellers are critical.

We may never all agree on the path to cross platform or the value of big data and how it is used in our industry but it is nice to have a forum to present findings and air all the opinions and insights. That is the value of the ARF and its research conferences.

Q&A Interview with Mike Saxon - SymphonyAM

Mike Saxon, SVP Advanced Media at Symphony Advanced Media (SymphonyAM), is an advertising effectiveness maven. His background includes stints at Nielsen//NetRatings, AIG and Harris Interactive. Now at SymphonyAM he is active in re-designing cross media measurement through the use of passive data gathering. In this fascinating interview, Mike talks about digital internet measurement, the importance of ACR (automatic content recognition), the challenge of out-of-home measurement, SymphonyAM initiatives in cross platform measurement and offers some predictions of the media landscape over the next few years.

Launched in late 2010, SymphonyAM is a media research and data technology firm that measures integrated cross-media consumption and resulting behaviors, enabling advertisers, agencies and publishers to optimize media strategies and maximize advertising performance. SymphonyAM has built a single-source panel of Android and iOS smartphone users; panelists download a mobile app that allows for passive tracking of TV, online, mobile and social. Interested in developments in passive media measurement, The Coalition for Innovation in Media Measurement (CIMM) is currently working with SymphonyAM to test the effectiveness of cross-media campaigns for three national advertisers.

The six videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                                Length (in minutes) 
Background and Next Generation         (5:33)
SymphonyAM                                      (7:10)
ACR                                                        (6:37)
Privacy, Target Demo                          (5:38)
Panel, OOH Challenge                        (9:09)
Predictions                                           (2:41)


Charlene Weisler interviews SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon who talks about his background and the next generation of researchers in this 5:33 minute video:



CW: Mobile measurement is still evolving. What is SymphonyAM doing in this area?

MS: SymphonyAM is focused on mobile insights in three areas: 1. Media Measurement: We are tracking smartphone and tablet usage of free, paid, and earned media. This includes mobile apps, mobile web, and social media. 2. Advertising Measurement: We are capturing both search and display ad exposure, as well as keyword usage on search apps and search web pages and 3. Mobile’s role in the purchase funnel: we are linking our mobile search and display data with purchase data, to help understand how and where mobile facilitates consumer purchases.

 

Charlene Weisler interviews Mike Saxon who talks about SymphonyAM and its unique method for cross platform measurement in this 7:10 minute video:



Mike Saxon of SymphonyAM talks to Charlene Weisler about ACR in this 6:37 minute video:




CW: What are the issues you face with cross platform measurement and what is your solution?

MS: As we’ve built out our cross-media advertising effectiveness business, it’s become clear to us that methodologies that rely on natural exposure to digital media have limitations. Part of the issue is sample. Getting enough people in the target demo to fill control and exposed groups for a single media is already difficult. Once you add on a second or third media, natural exposure becomes nearly impossible. Another part of the issue, which has existed for a long time, is that behavioral targeting negates the assumption that the control group and the exposed group will respond similarly to advertising. By design, the exposed and control groups are different. The conventional solution, holdout samples are costly to implement across multiple media of a campaign. Our solution is Media Plan Simulation. We have the ability to serve mobile ads in-line with a panelist’s normal mobile usage. We can replace the ad that would have run on a particular app, or mobile website, with a test ad of our choice. We can also suppress ads, and serve a control ad to a panelist who might have naturally received an ad from a running campaign. This technology also works on PCs, and we will be rolling that out later in the year.

 
CW: How will it be implemented?

MS: Using this technology, we can create test and control groups across multiple media based on whatever rules are appropriate for the campaign. Exposure could be based on demos, on apps used, on websites visited, or survey responses. This allows us to use a much smaller panel, since we can force exposure rather than wait for natural exposure. Cross Media Plan Simulation brings Cross Media Ad Effectiveness out of the land of the exotic, and into the world of the practical.


 
Charlene Weisler talks to SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon about the privacy issue in Big Data measurement and target demographics in this 5:38 minute video:




Charlene Weisler interviews SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon who talks about panel based measurement and the challenges of out of home measurement in this 9:09 minute video:


 


In this concluding video, SymphonyAM's Mike Saxon offers some predictions of how the media landscape will evolve over the next few years. This video is 2:41 minutes: