The Pursuit of Human Truth. An Interview with Starcom’s Kelly Kokonas on the Global Media Intelligence Report

Kelly Kokonas, Executive Vice President Global Data Strategy, Starcom WW, is staying on top of technology and its impact on global media, “whether,” she noted, “it is the implementation of technology, application of data and information insights, product research, advanced analytics and a whole slew of other data-driven solutions.” 

But it is not only a changing landscape. It is also inconsistent in its evolution and adoption. Kokonas’ agency has fielded a Global Media Intelligence study, in partnership with eMarketer, for the past nine years for over 40 countries and 2 billion internet users, revealing the trends and differences in consumer preferences by country. The results continue to surprise.

The Value of Global Media Intelligence

“There have been a lot of changes across the decades,” Kokonas explained, “and trying to find a data source across markets for time spent with media was elusive because there were a lot of data sets across markets as well as a lot of data sources that gave slightly different stats. So this Intelligence report has become a really great resource.”

This study has proven to be a strategic asset for Starcom clients, she stated, “at the campaign level, when we are doing strategy work, understanding people’s changing use of media over time, the direction and magnitude of that change. But it also has a great value at the portfolio level of brands or across categories, where this data is used as a foundational understanding for local and global budgets and what to spend by channel.” It also helps to inform advertisers on emerging channels which may be harder to measure and, “the return on investment may be lower.”

Revealing Global Trends

Having a decade’s worth of data enables Kokonas to see profound trends. “Ten years ago we were tracking household broadband penetration,” she mused, “and if any market got to 40% it was a digital revolution!” Fast forward to where we are today, “it is further accelerated by mobile and mobile experiences which further accelerated overall video viewing including more VOD and the rise of the smart TV in the household.” And then, she continued, “you have to consider all of the changes in the different markets.” Brazil, for example, ranks ahead of all of other markets in mobile phone usage, while Russia is, “still a media landscape in transition with digital devices and activities becoming more main stream for the first time in this report.” China, she reported, “is always an outlier. Consumers lead in adoption of smart devices such as a digitally enabled wristband or smart doorbell or smart appliance.” The magnitude of those changes year to year will continue to be profound.

Revealing Global Consumer Behaviors

With all of the convenience and connectedness that technology offers today, are consumers becoming more demanding of its capabilities? “Certainly consumer expectations are high,” Kokonas admitted. “We can infer that with the proliferation of devices for these digitally enabled experiences, as people are surprised and delighted with what they can do on their mobile device or with a branded experience, there is enthusiasm for more of these experiences.” These experiences go way beyond static advertising which people may want to avoid. “It’s about premium experiences that people are drawn to, that they love and get some benefit from, that makes them lean in and engage in a transaction with a brand in a different way,” she explained. All of these experiences are intertwined with commerce as behaviors are tracked through the funnel enabling a clearer understanding, “of the why and the how and the how frequent things are happening between consumers and brands.”

Brands Harnessing the New Technology

Industries are feeling the impact of new technology. “There are a lot of different opportunities in every single vertical to harness the possibilities of emerging technologies,” she explained, from mobile banking to CPG involving mobile payments and commerce. The extent to which individual brands harness the power of new technology depends on their digital maturity – just like the differences across countries. Some clients, according to Kokonas, are even strategizing in product development and their commerce development, “and the extent of those specifics depends on the category, the brand and the maturity of the market.” For marketers who want to harness voice, the report enables them to, “see which of those geographies have a mature enough marketplace around voice assistants for us to invest part of our marketing dollars and expect a positive return.”

Surprises in this Year’s Study

Emerging technology is expanding in some interesting ways. “Voice assistants tends to skew male and young which I find interesting,” she revealed, “and I am not sure why that would be. But then I remind myself that it is not an Alexa in the household but it is also geo-navigation.” In addition, she is seeing that the use of digital devices is increasing but the rate of the increase by countries can vary because of logistics and infrastructure. For example, digital viewers in Germany are still attached to traditional media and are not rushing to adapt to new tech, especially older adults. Part of this is due to a lack of robust networks since so much money was spent, instead, on reunification. Compare this to Hong Kong, which admittedly has a smaller geography, “but they also have some of the world’s highest rate of advanced digital device ownership which is encouraged by virtual universal internet access.”

Conclusion

For clients, Kokonas believes that the best use of this study is to expand the range of opportunities that marketers can use to reach the right audiences, even if standard measurement hasn’t quite caught up to the advancing technology. “It will continue to be elusive as to how to measure return on investment. I have not seen a marketing mix model on voice yet. There will always be this pressure, this tension to measure these emerging technologies and their ability to impact business. The best way forward is to test and learn.” But beyond that, she added, “It is about the relentless pursuit of the human truth. This data is really an awesome baseline for all of that, across so many different media channels and media experiences as well as across the different countries,” she concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Unlocking The Addressable Future

According to eMarketer, Addressable TV ad spend is on a tear, increasing from $760million in 2016 and projected to rise to $3.49billion by 2021. The advantages that addressable offers both buyers and sellers also benefits consumers who can now receive messaging that is tailored to their interests and needs. Many companies believe that there is an even greater opportunity for growth in the next few years and are willing to place more dollars against it in the next sales cycle. 

Advertising Week’s panel titled, Unlocking the Addressable Future brought Discovery, Xander, FreeWheel and Omnicom together to discuss how they will ‘unlock’ these opportunities. The potential is great. “First, the infrastructure exists,” stated, David Algranati, Chief Product Officer, Comscore, there is, “the ability to version ads at the household level at scale.” And with national addressable, “If the networks, in conjunction with the MVPDs were to version the inventory that the networks own, the scale or available inventory for addressable advertising would dramatically increase creating a whole new set of opportunities for advertisers.” 

Where is Addressable Today?

For Dan Rosenfeld, Vice President Data Strategy, Xandr, addressable offers relevant advertising delivered one-to-one directly to the consumer or a household through TV distribution or digital. Keith Kazerman, Executive Vice President, Digital Sales, Advanced Advertising and Research, Discovery, essentially agreed, adding that the ads are dynamically inserted.

On the agency side, Matt Kramer, Managing Director, Advanced Advertising, Omnicom, suggested that companies consider the levels of delivery. “At the top you have data driven linear, using first and third party data to better select what networks, dayparts and programs to buy,” he explained, “Layer number two is getting down to the household level and finally you have the IPTV space which is built upon connected devices at the access point and the OTT apps you are trying to sponsor,” which is at the programmatic level.

For Claudio Marcus, General Manager, Data Platform, FreeWheel, addressable identifies segments of consumers who share common attributes and is not necessarily one-to-one marketing.  “This is not,” he assured, “targeting people on a single individual basis.” This is an important distinction, coming at a time of GDPR in the E.U. and state level privacy legislation such as CCPA in the US. He added that addressable offers not only target-ability but is also ubiquitously measureable. “The measurement component of addressability extends beyond the households that don’t support targeting today,” he stated, meaning that an advertiser can deliver a linear ad and still understand which household received that ad. 

Where is Addressable going?

So today, Addressable can be used in a myriad of ways to capture consumers by segment and to measure against traditional targeting and delivery. But where is it headed? For Marcus, looking ahead three years from now will bring profound applications. "Three years from now, the definition of addressable TV advertising will be ads that are targeted to anonymous, likeminded segments of consumers who are reached via TV and premium video content, regardless of the type of delivery or device. Addressable TV ads will be seamlessly enabled across National, Local and premium digital video, and will considerably easier to plan, buy, execute and measure," he predicted.

For Zazerman, the stakes are high and collaboration is pivotal. “If national programmer addressability is not available at scale in 3 years, everyone on this stage should be held accountable. Collaboration is key to bringing this opportunity to market for our collective clients,” he concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Epoll Study Finds that Streaming Hardware is Critical to Success

A recent study by Epoll found that streaming hardware is vitally important to consumers as part of their enjoyment of content. The study concludes that, “with cord-cutting becoming a reality for more consumers today, devices that connect to these services will need to appeal to the masses.”

An example of this phenomena is Roku which, according to eMarketer, has more users than any other streaming device (excluding smart TVs) at 86.2M in the U.S. Compare this to the E-Score Brand survey, where Roku has the highest Appeal score at 49%, with close to a third of consumers (31%) agreeing that Roku is better than competitors.
Other takeaways include:

• Streaming devices are mainly used to watch shows and movies but some have additional features such as games and music. For those reasons, Roku is considered most Entertaining (41%) followed by Amazon Fire TV (39%)
• Other features such as voice activation, 4K resolution, game controller support, (Xbox/Playstation) and brand ecosystem are things users also find valuable. Apple TV leads for Innovative (27%) and Amazon Fire TV Stick (23%) and Apple TV (22%) are considered more Cutting Edge than Google Chromecast (16%) and Roku (15%).
• As streaming devices are fighting to be the hardware of choice for cord-cutters, Apple TV’s early rollout gives it a slight advantage as being High Quality, Innovative and Cutting Edge while the others in the space have higher Appeal than Apple TV. Consumer comments suggest Apple’s premium pricing ($150-$200) may be difficult to justify for most consumers compared to Roku ($30-$100) and Chromecast ($35-$70).

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.

Linear TV’s Moment of Greatness, Flickers

Linear TV has been having a tough time lately. Although rumors of its imminent demise are premature, those who confidently predicted the business was not being hurt by cord-cutting, for example, are being proven wrong. Long time sales executives, greatly respected by the industry, are being shown the door as sales revenues decline. 

As with T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock, I have seen Linear TV’s moment of greatness flicker. Here are some of the reasons why:

Wishful Thinking on Cord-Cutting

Back in 2013 at the VideoSchmooze Online Video Forum, industry analyst Craig Moffet stated that cord cutting de-accelerated in 3Q13, meaning that it was going down, unlike what was reported in the mainstream technology press at the time. According to Moffet, the fact that it was misreported as accelerating, “speaks to a desire in the tech press for parables – overthrowing the oppressive MVPDs. But the math tells you otherwise. There is no question that people are cutting the cord but it is not a torrent. It is a trickle.”

Obviously that was wrong. Less than three years later, the cord-cutting spigot went from a trickle to a rush and now in 2019, Mark Huffman writes that, “eMarketer predicts that the number of pay TV households in the U.S. will drop by 4 percent by the end of the year to around 86.5 million homes. It further expects the free fall to continue, with pay TV subscriptions falling below 80 million by 2021.”

Lesson: We have to stop feeling that others are out to get us and focus instead on the reality of the trends … and act.

Over-Confidence in the Loyalty of the Viewer

How many times have I read that today’s viewers still watch lots of live TV? In June 2019, the NCTA released the results of a study that showed that two out of three adults watch TV live. “Notably, of the people who said they watch TV live on a regular basis, two out of three (66 percent) are most likely to watch via a pay TV service such as cable. While apps and smart TVs are clearly on the rise for many, and especially among younger generations, the majority of people still favor sitting in front of a television to catch the latest episode of their favorite show, to stay up to date on the news, or to keep up with sporting competitions.”

But the Nielsen numbers tell a different story. According to Marketing Charts, which analyzes Nielsen’s viewing results, 3Q18 was the first quarter on record in which 18-34 traditional TV viewing (live + time-shifted TV) dropped below 2 hours per day and declined 23 minutes per day compared to 3Q17. The article stated, “In percentage terms, the amount of time 18-34-year-olds as a whole spent watching traditional TV (live and time-shifted) in 3Q18 dropped by about 17.2% from the previous year. Needless to say, that’s a huge chunk – a drop of about 1 in every 6 minutes in just a single year.”

So what is happening here? Digital has supplanted traditional TV for youth. In the same study, Nielsen reported that 18-34-year-olds “spent one hour more per day in 3Q18 using apps and the web on smartphones alone than watching traditional TV.” And notably, many 18-34s don’t watch traditional TV at all – only 73% versus 86% of all adults.

Lesson: Traditional TV is less important to younger viewers and time is on their side.

Dog Paddling to Retirement at the Networks

The inability of some top management at some companies to risk implementing momentous change (possibly forfeiting short term profit or even courting failure) is the silent killer of the network business model. Sometimes it is because the system rewards short term efforts - bonuses are bestowed on an annual basis based on the year’s performance. Sometimes it is from sheer shortsightedness where they just don’t see how innovations can help their business. Whatever the reason, these folks stick to the status quo, essentially dog paddling to retirement.

Without naming names, one company who didn’t see the value of set top box data 12 years ago is now struggling to catch up to the data wave and, perhaps somewhat relatedly, just reported an 11% drop in the company’s U.S. advertising revenue.

Lesson: Think and act long term, even if you are not around to see it.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” - Prufrock

Takeways From the Programmatic TV Summit

“It’s TV but not quite TV anymore,” posited Tim Hanlon, Founder and CEO, Vetere Group. Randi Schatz, VP, Market Leader of Media Entertainment, Future plc, called it, “the most transformational topic in media today with rapidly changing developments offering a myriad of opportunity and challenges to TVs technological future.”

Arguably one of the fastest growing and increasingly morphing movements in media today is in programmatic. From its early years of automatic buying and real time bidding, today’s programmatic has been both humanized and computerized in a way that lends itself to all platforms of media buying and selling. How is the industry handling yet another area of transformative change?
Here are the takeaways from the recent Programmatic TV Summit held in NYC:

• Programmatic TV is expanding into more areas of television and spending is on a steady rise according to eMarketer, offering opportunities even in linear avails. The whole nature of programmatic has evolved. Will Offeman, Chief Product Officer, WideOrbit, noted that, “now there is programmatic against premium inventory.”

• But legacy systems and protocols are slowing down progress. As Gerard Broussard, Principal, Premeditated Media, pointed out, linear TV currently lacks the technological bones for exact digital-like programmatic and older systems are slowing down the roll-out. But there are industry initiatives likeTIP (Television Interface Practices) that are tackling the obstacles.

• Creative is innovating so as to take advantage of the flexibility of formats, messaging and pod lengths that are enabled by the various device platforms. Xandr has “a brand new user interface with a suite of products to expand creative formats and a powerful optimization engine with a new user interface that can activate on these different formats,” according to Lindsey Van Kirk, Vice President of Product Management.

• Consumer opportunities are expanding. Technological innovations like driverless cars (where consumers will have uninterrupted travel time, ripe for messaging) and smart products (like dog collars that indicate when to feed and when to walk the dog) are creating new advertising opportunities coupled with new data streams.

• Technology is streamlining and improving the business. Joan Fitzgerald, SVP Advanced TV Global Partnerships, PremiumMedia360, explained that A.I. is enabling clients to, “figure out media in advance along with stewardship, reconciliation and payments.” Adam Lowy, Chief Commercial Officer, Telaria, noted that “There is traction. In OTT the supply is growing and more facets of the inventory is being realized. More people experimenting with programmatic to target smarter.” Programmatic, according to Lowy, “is more of a core part of businesses.”

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.