“Really Talk to Me” – A+E Networks Examines the Potential of Total Audience.

In a media world that has historically (and misguidedly) placed its valuation on the younger age demographic, it is refreshing to see a new effort to correct for that inaccuracy by showing the value of all consumers, no matter their age. A+E has embarked on an ambitious study on Total Audience 18+ that demonstrates the power of consumer spend across all age groups, particularly older adults.   

To craft such an important analysis, Marcela Tabares, Senior Vice President, Research & Strategic Insights, A+E Networks, sought data and trends from many sources and parsed the results in a way that compared behaviors across a range of ages. “We didn’t set out to do one specific study. There were a couple of different components,” she explained. “One aspect of it is that we designed it across mutually exclusive demographics like 18-44, 45-54 and 55+. The reason we did this is because we really never dug into the data and analytics to understand how the different demographic cohorts perform across the funnel.”

Total Audience Methodology

“We looked at top level awareness and receptivity down to understanding their economic power and how they’re spending across all of the consumer verticals, ad receptivity and down to the conversion. How are they actually responding to advertising, are there some differences there, what is the real magnitude and opportunity within these different age cohorts. We really wanted to understand it,” Tabares noted, “to maximize the potential of our audiences and optimizer the relationship we have with our partners.”  To that end, Tabares and her team, “Applied an integrative, multimodal research strategy to quantify how key demo cohorts within Adults 18+ behave in the marketing landscape.”

Why Total Audience?

We know that the U.S. population is aging. Older adults are the fastest growing group in the last decade and projected to be in the next decade. “Ignore this demographic group at your own peril. You need to stop being so myopic in thinking about your marketing strategy and set aside your fascination with youth culture,” Tabares warned.

To many who have grappled with how to demonstrate the value of reaching older adults to advertisers, the study revealed some fascinating surprises in addition to some fairly logical insights. Using A+E’s Precision and Performance platform for advanced targeting and data driven linear analyses as well as an attribution backend, David Ernst, Vice President, Advanced Television and Digital Analytics, noticed that, “a large portion of the people that were outside of the buying demographics tended to contribute an awful lot of the performance – as much as 50% and even more.” These older prospects, Tabares explained, were being left out of the buying equation, “because they were being narrowed down into specific demographic groups.”

Total Audience Takeaways

The results of the Total Audience study underscore the value of the return on investment when you expand the age target to include all adults. There were quite a few surprising results. For example, ad receptivity was higher among older adults than among younger ones. “Really? Their recall and attention and greater message memorability and likeability?” Tabares asked rhetorically. Notably, she added, these behaviors and responses increase with each examined age cohort and ranges of consumer categories.

Tara Lantieri, Senior Director, Primary Research, Ad Sales Strategic Insights, A+E Networks delved deeply into this subject by researching a year’s worth of data that included 20,000 different TV ads from over 1600 advertisers and more than 50 categories. “What we saw was that brand memorability actually grows as viewers age. It’s twice as high for adults 55+ versus 18-34 year olds. When we look at message memorability, we see the exact same pattern where it is twice as high. Likeability follows that same, step-wise pattern where it grows by age. It’s about 71% higher overall than it is for younger adults. And that pattern is consistent across categories – 47 out of 58 examined,” she revealed.

With advertising creative, Lantieri found that multi-generational ads did particularly well among adults across the age spectrum. In some cases these ads performed twice as high in memorability and likeability metrics among older adults because they were viewed as respectful and realistic and non-stereotypical. In addition, ensemble cast ads also did especially well, “when the ensemble cast specifically included and spoke to people who are older in a realistic and nuanced way,” she said.

Aliza Wechsler, Director, Advanced Advertising and Attribution Analytics, A+E Networks, examined actual campaigns across several categories to ascertain the impact on conversion when advertisers crafted messaging that was more inclusive across age. With CPG for example, Wechsler found that 55+ represents 53% of the spend - $200 million more than the other two demo breaks combined. Auto showed similar results. “This shows the huge spending power of 55+. When you add their scale, it magnifies their potential. And they are not even being spoken to correctly. Imagine how much more of their dollars you can get if you spoke to them correctly,” she noted.

Conversion rates were also impressive. “Strategically targeting across all demos, lifts the conversion rates up unilaterally across all of the demographics. Purchase rates in our network group were 11% higher when you targeted those particular behaviors than those who fell outside of the (demo) target,” she found.

What About Advertisers?

“Adults 55+ are driving economic growth,” Lantieri stated, “For every dollar spent in the economy, Adults 55+ account for 41 cents and they spent $3.4 trillion last year alone,” with their spending increasing and currently representing 41% of spend. This compares with 18% of spend from 18-34s. If you are ignoring older adults, “You are leaving a lot of money on the table.” One would think that targeting older adults in a way that resonates with them would be a no-brainer.

But the old canard that advertisers get 55+ viewers anyway persists. “What does it mean to, ‘get them’?  This is not a monolithic demographic. This is a very diverse demo with diverse interests, appetites, behaviors. They (advertisers) are not optimizing them as a consumer prospect, mindset, interest, behavior. You are just getting them demographically,” Tabares explained with Ernst adding, “You might be getting an impression but are you really communicating with them?  Messages that resonate with people are going to motivate them to action.”

Changing advertiser minds when faced with entrenched beliefs is no mean feat but Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales, A+E Networks, sees opportunity. “Total audience buying is starting to gain traction with the agencies. They seem to come around quicker as they see market realities and there’s no way to control CPM inflation without it,” he shared. 

Have advertising partners changed their target because of the results? “This research study is just one of the building blocks of selling Total Audience, it rolls up into a larger conversation with many different tentacles,” Olsen explained and added, ”The right combination of education and our creative solutions has led to a few instances where our partners have gone back to reevaluate their target. We now have a few attention guarantee deals in the works with clients across a variety of categories.”

Next Steps

Tabares is hopeful that, “although age is still left out of the conversation,” and older audiences, “are not being spoken to correctly,” there is a real opportunity here to change the dynamic. “If we see that ad receptivity looks like this, that they have the spending power across the majority of categories and that they are responding to advertising with sales, what would happen if you actually talked to them in a more meaningful, relevant way?” she asked.

Next steps in this process will include a major ethnographic and psychological insights study that more fully dimensionalize and “get into the layers of what representation means,” to this audience. “Now is a very different time to examine values, beliefs, aspirations, attitudes, mindsets and engagement in brands and how we can tell their stories,” she concluded. 

 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Revenge, Confusion and Kumbayah at the TV of Tomorrow 2019 Conference

Between ATSC 3.0, Addressability, live programming such as news and sports and OTT, this year’s NYC TV of Tomorrow conference offered a great sense of anticipation regarding the future of media. From when I first attended the conference in 2012, the ecosystem has gone through a series of seismic changes, lurching forward in one area and contracting in another. Recall the first rumblings of Addressable? Now it is reaching critical mass. Remember 3D TV? Yeah, neither do I. This year, the prognosticators report the following:

Revenge of the Nerds

There is more data than ever which leads to much more complexity in how it is used. “There is a greater need for examining multiple data sources, rather than simply relying on one or two” stated Helen Katz, Senior Vice President and Director Global Analytics and Insights, Publicis. “Given the increased complexity in consumers’ media and purchase behavior over the past five years, buyers and sellers both need to look to more granular data to do their jobs effectively.”

To that end, Julian Zilberbrand Executive Vice President Audience Science, Viacom/CBS, got it right when he said, “If you don’t have your nerds, you’re dead.” Arming your company with the best talent in data science, research and analytics is a must to compete in this ever complex media ecosystem. I have been in the nerd sector of the industry for decades so this evolution in industry attitude is very welcome.

We Are All Confused

As frenetic and confusing as the change is for those who work in media, the world is equally so for the consumer. “There is consumer confusion about how to access content,” stated Julie DeTraglia, Head of Research, Hulu. “We went into homes and found that people don’t understand their own TV sets.” Natasha Hritzuk, Vice President Consumer Insights, WarnerMedia, added, “It is a challenge for consumers. People feel overwhelmed. They have to grapple with the device proliferation and the choice of content.”

Part of the confusion on the media side is the changing ways to do business. “The rules we grew up with are antiquated,” stated Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President Ad Sales, A+E Networks, “It was good when we started because TV didn’t have to sell itself,” but now there is more competition. And even current business rules are not as simple as we may think. Take, for example, calculating attribution. “When I view engaging content, I won’t switch to buy something. I will wait,” explained Radha Subramanyam, President and Chief Research and Analytics Officer, Viacom/CBS. “Half of TV impressions are not counted because they are time shifted. Tons of clients do attribution around live. But no one will stop in the middle of a great program to buy something, especially something expensive.”

A Media Kumbayah

For the first time in our history, there has been a partnering of not only frenemy companies who compete on the same side of the business but also those who compete across the negotiation table. Programmers, networks and content distributors are forming working open partnerships with agencies, brands and advertisers. This cross industry collaboration is a welcome advancement where agreed upon solutions can be facilitated and moved more quickly into market.

David Ernst, Vice President, Advanced TV and Digital Insights, A+E Networks, explained that, “We offer insights as to how well campaigns on our networks are driving results, driving KPIs, drive to the web or retail location. What is changing is the dynamic of media seller and buyer. Once at odds, we are now all in same boat. There is more collaboration with agencies.” Olsen is, “confident in the bigger picture that TV works and we need to get there fast. It will take a couple of years but when we put our heads together we find many solutions.”

Be Careful of Simple Solutions

To mitigate this confusion, there may be a temptation to enforce simple standardizable solutions. But this lack of nuance would be a mistake. Collecting all content into an app, for example, aggregates content from many properties which can be good but, recalling her past experience in CPG research, Hritzuk warned that, “We are on a point of inflection to become commoditized. I worry about commoditization of inventory.”

Bringing different datasets together can solve for the deficiencies in each. Tom Ziangus, Senior Vice President Research, AMC Networks, noted, “There is a level of granularity that we don’t have with Nielsen but a level of information on Individual viewers from Nielsen that we don’t have from big data,” he explained. However, bringing different datasets together is complicated. “We need to ‘de-babelize’ the dataset [into one common language],” noted Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom, “Or we can’t have same buying and selling combinations.” For Andrew Ward, President, Ampersand, the industry should, “move away from panel survey-based to deterministic.”

Remember too that we are not always seeking the same solutions. “PlutoTV is free so we are not competing for money but competing for time. People feel overwhelmed and confused over places to watch things. For many, Pluto is easy, like turning the TV on. We are not trying to get dollars out of people’s pockets. We are competing differently,” explained Colleen Fahey-Rush, Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer, Viacom.

For Katz, she believes the industry will eventually come together to create a common data platform that incorporates data from multiple sources. How soon that will happen remains to be seen. Stay tuned for TVOT 2020.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

TV Ad Targeting: Lessons From the Digital World

Advancements made in TV ad targeting are proving to be a boon despite linear viewership erosion. A recent Advanced Advertising Summit highlighted how advanced advertising, precision audience targeting, and cross media measurement are adding to television’s assets and fueling its growth.

Advanced Advertising for TV Full Speed Ahead

According to Summit speaker Irwin Gotlieb, senior advisor to WPP, there are no technical obstacles standing in the way of TV ad targeting. The obstacles lie in business operations that continue to silo television and digital as well as in the measurement that has not kept up with the changing ecosystem. “A significant portion in the decline of TV viewing is poor measurement,” Gotlieb stated, as flawed measurement causes undercounting and less inventory.

But TV has an advantage. Its unparalleled reach, combined with newly available granular data, better targets the consumer through the purchase cycle and moves TV down the purchase funnel.

Learning From Digital’s Mistakes

As with any targeting technology, privacy looms large. In a recent article for AdExchanger, Alison Weissbrot wrote, “As digital marketers enter the TV buying world with sophisticated targeting capabilities, identifying the right balance for personalization in the living room is crucial.” At what point does a message become intrusive? While digital ads target individuals, the advantage for television is that ads target households. Relevant ads for the household protect privacy more so than those targeted to a specific individual.

Ad fatigue, ad irrelevancy, and brand safety are other problems faced by digital. TV ad targeting can avoid these issues with frequency capping and a fair ad rotation to avoid fatigue. Additionally, curated ad campaigns, bolstered by data analytics now available in advanced advertising platforms, ensure ad relevancy and brand safety. Jason DeMarco, vice president of Programmatic and Audience Solutions at A+E Networks, told MediaVillage, “We have identified the ability to increase the frequency of advertisers to have a more well-balanced delivery of ads and creative.” This helps the consumer on the user experience side and avoids saturation on the advertiser side.

Learning From Digital’s Successes

TV is also learning from digital by reaching out to smaller advertisers who might have previously been priced out of that marketplace. A recent example, reported MediaVillage, is A+E Network’s Precision1. According to Peter Olsen, executive vice president of Ad Sales and Content Partnerships, it “gives access to people who aren’t traditionally big spenders in TV.”

Some companies are also advancing the connection between digital and TV through initiatives such as CFlight. According to conference speaker Mike Mayer, executive vice president of Sales Solutions at NBCUniversal, CFlight “combines linear with digital impressions and sells deals with total impressions.” Consortiums like Vizio’s Project OAR, which stands for Open Addressable Ready, is another industry initiative.

Currently, addressable advertising for TV is two minutes local time per hour. But nothing will be ready on a national level until the measurement systems can handle it without any manual effort by the back office. However, the lessons drawn from digital will enable TV to more successfully and quickly move into this new advertising paradigm.

This article first appeared in Videa blog.

Just in Time for the Upfront, A+E Guarantees Audience Based Advertising

The folks at A+E Networks understand the value of a careful process. Now, as they announce the launch of their Audience Based Advertising Solutions for both Digital and Linear platforms, all of the critical elements that have taken years to achieve, are now in place. “Seven years ago we started the digital iteration of precision,” noted Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales and Content Partnerships, “three years ago we added the linear focus. And last year we launched the attribution-based performance system.”

Although the digital and linear marketplaces are very different, the complex integration of data, the streamlining of processes and the ability to customize and then guarantee results places this initiative in a new, higher class of offerings and just in time for the upfront.

Addressing Marketplace Frustrations

Why do all of this? Olsen explained that there are two big frustrations for advertisers. One is the price of entry into the digital and, even more, in linear marketplaces where it is perceived as cost prohibitive. “That is why we launched a new product called Precision One or P1 which is a single network optimization tool intended for clients that want to test in this space or people who aren’t currently big spenders in TV,” he stated.   In this way, smaller clients could participate in television where now, as in digital, they could get rich data and advanced targeting opportunities “as a way to welcome new people in.”

The other frustration, Olsen posited, is the general inability to do cross-platform or multi-platform strategic target optimization. “There is the lack of common currency as well as other measurement issues out there, but we are willing to take a leap and say ‘you give us your target and we will buy the audience wherever it may be.’ Essentially, we need to be able to optimize any target audience wherever they are watching.” 

“These are the new initiatives,” stated Jason DeMarco, Vice President, Programmatic and Audience Solutions, “but the underlying foundation remains, which is to find a solution that is beneficial to all parties involved. We are focused on optimizing the user experience with relevant targeted ads and keeping intact the premium experience of our content.”

Premium Programmatic

How does the team at A+E overcome the nagging but incorrect perception of programmatic as remnant inventory? “I have been fighting that fight for a good seven years,” admitted Olsen. “Programmatic started as a race to the bottom because basically it was a way to sell off distressed inventory.” But the reality is, he added, “No inventory, whether on TV or in digital should be considered distressed when you are applying data sources to it. Each and every impression will be relevant and valuable to someone.”

When it comes to the premium viewing experience, the relevant ads within that experience will have greater resonance as well as brand safety. In addition, there is a wider rotation of ads so viewers will not see the same ads over and over again. “We have identified the ability to increase the frequency of advertisers to have a more well-balanced delivery of ads and creative which helps the consumer on the user experience side,” Olsen noted. On the advertiser side, this method avoids saturation so that, “the premium is maintaining that TV-like environment across all platforms and screens.”

Technology Partnerships

A+E Networks has also partnered with several technology firms to replicate the TV experience on digital platforms. Ethan Heftman, Senior Vice President, Precision and Performance Advertising Sales, explained that, “The SVOD services are taking viewership and therefore impressions away from the ad-supported video market. Where do we turn? Do we go to unsafe, hard to measure spaces that get gets brands really nervous but help on the efficiency? Or do we find ways to explore places in the premium market?” To that end, A+E Networks is placing more of their premium content on Hulu, Roku and Pluto. In this way they can keep the ecosystem “healthy and also retain clients who understand that video works while also making it affordable.”

The ability to blend of all of the different datasets from both the household and individual level is another selling point to this initiative. “This is where we find the best in class partnerships,” noted DeMarco, like LiveRamp, DataPlusMath and iSpot for data, ad serving and tech stack partnerships such as FreeWheel as well as trade desks on the buy side like dataxu. There are a lot of test cases using ingested client data, matching it with viewership data and delivering against targeted audiences with results expected in the next several months. For the upfront, there is the promise that all of these datasets will enable cross-platform measurement and deliverability for advertisers.

“A+E offers the premium content and distribution to deliver audiences. We are partnering with the best in class technology and data to bring together all aspects of cross-platform viewership synchronized, collaborative way,” concluded Olsen, who backs up his beliefs by guaranteeing the buy results.

Next Steps

While the full holistic integration of digital and linear is possible, it is not simple. Heftman summed it up, “We think that the only way to compete and not overpromise and under-deliver, is to have a product that, from a cost perspective, reduces the barriers to entry for new advertisers and move from digital and into a linear television world with reduced complexity.”

The response from advertisers has been encouraging. “We were the first in market with outcome guarantees which created initial demand,” Heftman added. Now bring on the upfront! 

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Value of Conversion Guarantees. A+E’s Peter Olsen Reports Incremental Income Based on Their Attribution Model.

The recent A+E Networks announcement about the significant incremental revenue increase it garnered with its outcome based conversion guarantees to advertisers has sparked greater interest in the value of attribution-based sales for the 2018 upfront.  

“A+E Networks has taken a clear leadership position in embracing attribution reporting and truly highlighting the power of TV to drive results for marketers," said John Hoctor, CEO of Data Plus Math whose company is working closely with A+E to track and measure the results. 

Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales, A+E Networks stated, “We truly believe in outcomes as a game changer for the industry.  Everything we have done for decades has been creating proxies for what really matters – did my marketing campaign drive business outcomes.  Thus, we are taking the long view on this and didn’t expect massive changes in year one.  We are very pleased with the dialogue we are having with clients and agencies on this front.”

Olsen spoke at length about what this type of guarantee has done to service clients and spur their ad sales: 

Weisler: What was the reaction from the clients?

Olsen: They are just happy that we are listening and taking action on what really matter most to them and that’s providing true ROI on their media investments.

Weisler: What are the next steps to expand this?

Olsen: We’ve seen terrific momentum around our Audience-Based Solutions (Precision/Performance) since we announced outcome-based guarantees last spring. We’ll continue to partner with dynamic measurement companies like Data+Math and we are expanding the A+E Network’s team, which is now headed by Ethan Heftman, Vice President of Audience-Based Solutions, so we can keep up with marketplace demands. It’s an exciting time for us and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring to market this offering that we believe will drive our partners’ businesses forward.  There are a few additional announcements that will be coming out around the ANA on what comes next.

Weisler: Which industries were included in this study?

Olsen: We can’t get too specific due to client confidentiality, but these deals represent marketers within the auto and QSR categories among others.

Weisler: Were the results guaranteed and if so, what was the basis of the guarantee?

Olsen: The overall deals are a blend of traditional metrics (age/sex); strategic target guarantees and a portion of each deal is guaranteed on a business outcome.  We need to create benchmarks and then guarantee a lift off of that benchmark – which all takes some time.

Weisler: Were there differences by category or any surprises?

Olsen: Absolutely there are differences! And there should be. The business metrics for an auto advertiser are vastly different than those of a QSR. The biggest surprise we saw was that, regardless of the category, there’s an eagerness and openness among our partners to take a step in this direction. In each instance it’s been a collaborative effort from the start. As our partners on board more data sets, we believe ultimately this offering will be available for virtually all categories.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillag