Don’t Stop Advertising During a Pandemic. An Interview with Hanna Gryncwajg of TVSquared

Recent events from the pandemic to the protests have not only changed the ways we live with each other but also the processes by which we interact. Looking specifically at our industry and the way we transact business, it is clear that the old processes need to be updated to reflect the new realities. 

For those is the media sales sector, what was once hands-on and meeting-in-person has, by necessity, changed. TVSquared’s Vice President of Enterprise Accounts, Hanna Gryncwajg is a media expert with experience that spans linear and advanced TV, OTT, digital, and programmatic sales. For her, the pandemic, “has put an even stronger spotlight on the importance of speed and agility for advertisers. Those that react quickly – in smart, strategic ways – survive and thrive.”

Here are her thoughts about where we are and where we are going:

Charlene Weisler: How has your job changed pre and during the pandemic?

Hanna Gryncwajg: At TVSquared, my job is primarily working with MVPDs and media owners, providing them with attribution and measurement tools for their advertisers. While the sell-side was certainly in the midst of change, moving toward more transparency, accountability and outcomes, the pandemic has accelerated it. They are even more hyper-focused on providing their advertisers with proof of performance and the data-backed insights needed to reach audiences whose viewing habits and patterns are changing constantly. Brands want to be able to dynamically manage and optimize linear and OTT campaigns (like they do with digital), and MVPDs and media owners are adapting to that demand quickly.  

  

Weisler: What are the greatest challenges for sales today?

Gryncwajg: For sales across all parts of the advertising ecosystem, two challenges stand out. The first is staying on top of the rapidly evolving industry, which is no easy feat. Our space is changing by the day, with automation, data and technology moving us forward. It’s so critical for sales to be able to articulate these changes and trends clearly and in context of clients’ needs and challenges.

Second, the shift away from “traditional” metrics to ones that are more business-specific, has created a disconnect in the market. Don’t get me wrong, outcomes- and performance-based metrics, and being able to measure TV’s direct impact on them, are very good things. But in the case of agencies and sell-side sales, they are still being “graded” on delivering GRPs. That is a disconnect that is tough to balance, but we’re seeing the divide lessen.

Weisler: What are the greatest opportunities?

Gryncwajg: There are so many opportunities, but most have one thing in common: they benefit the advertiser. At the end of the day, we’re all serving the advertiser – whether you’re a DSP, agency, an enterprise seller, you name it. The end user has the money and they want to leverage TV to move products. They are not interested in GRPs. They want flexibility and transparency into what’s working and what’s not, and the data-backed insights to inform continuous optimizations.

In the case of streaming services, at the very moment (that’s how quickly we are evolving) it’s all about incremental reach, proving out how OTT extends reach over linear campaigns. OTT providers are seeing an influx of ad spend.  Some of it is clearly due to increased viewing during the pandemic, but much of it is about the content, not where or on what device it is being viewed.   OTT providers want to make sure they are finally given the credit of viewers they deserve, and to keep those additional dollars flowing. The time is now to prove what incremental reach can do for a brand – to measure it and also to attribute response to it. TVSquared plays a critical role here because we measure TV everywhere, across linear, data-driven linear and digital. We provide this critical piece of information to our partners as well as brands directly.

Weisler: What are you able to tell advertisers and clients regarding their flights during the pandemic?

Gryncwajg: TVSquared is a single, unified platform that measures outcomes, impressions, reach, frequency and reach extension across linear and digital TV anywhere in the world. We currently have clients in 76 countries and counting. We’re not in the business of attribution studies, which provide findings six weeks or more after a campaign. We are always-on, so you get real-time insights on the business impact of your campaigns. During the pandemic or not, we’re able to tell our clients optimal campaign delivery, reach and frequency. They get granular performance analytics by creative, day, daypart, channel, program and genres – with insights down to the DMA an ZIP code levels. They understand the immediate, longer-term and household-level impact of TV, and can uncover unique reach across OTT, as well as incremental reach vs. linear.

Weisler: In those industries where product sells itself like hand sanitizer, why should advertisers continue to advertise? What is the right mix during these times?  

Gryncwajg: It’s about adapting your creatives to be situationally aware and then testing and learning. There are products that are much more in-demand now than ever before. But there’s still competition and consumers have many options. At the start of lockdown, we saw many clients go off-air for a week to adapt their creatives to address the pandemic in some form or another. They then were right back on a few days later.

The right mix is 100% dependent on the brand. What works for one, isn’t necessarily going to work for another. Once a brand is on-air, it’s so critical to test and learn – see how new buys, timeslots, OTT/linear mixes, etc. are impacting the bottom line. And then use everything you learned to inform your next flight. Viewing patterns and audiences are always going to be shifting, so constant measurement and then acting fast to make those learnings actionable are very important.  

Weisler: For those categories that are hurting like Hospitality, should they continue to advertise? 

Gryncwajg: One of our biggest pieces of advice for advertisers is to not go dark. The damage we’ve seen from brands going off air, and essentially relinquishing their share of voice to competitors, is hard to come back from. It’s about finding the right messaging and staying on-air. Consumers are not necessarily buying cars or booking vacations at the moment, but you still see auto and travel brands on-air to maintain brand awareness. Their creatives aren’t about direct selling at the moment, but they are still staying in front of consumers so when the time comes to purchase a new car and book a holiday, they are top of mind. 

Weisler: As states open up, are you seeing a shift in the business? Are KPIs changing?  

Gryncwajg: The KPIs we measure for our thousands of advertisers are unique to each advertiser, so it’s hard to generalize. I will say that some of the brands that were on-air to maintain awareness have been slowly shifting back to more performance-based KPIs as things get back to normal (or as normal as things can be now). We’re also seeing verticals like travel, real estate and auto start to increase their presence across linear and OTT. While they never went dark, they are starting to show patterns of returning to pre-COVID schedules.

Weisler: What types of platforms are working best overall at this time for advertisers and why?

Gryncwajg: TVSquared has been growing steadily since its start, but the last few months have been extremely busy. Advertisers need to know that every dollar in their ad budgets are working, so cross-platform attribution that generates real-time insights has climbed to the top of many priority lists. Our platform was built to be data agnostic, it is versatile and flexible to serve a global community with different datasets and media needs. For an advertiser to be agile, its partners have to be as well. We quickly ingest any type of dataset that a client wants to work with to provide immediate results. There is no need to wait weeks for reports. Instant gratification and results = impacting change towards efficiency.  

  

Give us an overview on a global level on the state of advertising - maybe comparing countries?

Gryncwajg: We work with global accounts every day. We are the only GDPR compliant attribution provider and the only one that measures both linear and OTT globally. We have hundreds of clients that run campaigns in 20 countries or more. In fact, I’m working with a global data partner right now and we are training their sales teams in US, Europe, Asia and Australia. Understanding each country’s culture and media nuances are key to communicating in a way that is respectful, engaging and will drive response.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

The World is Changing. Stephen DiMarco, Chief Digital Officer, Kantar on the COVID-19 Barometer Study

How is the COVID-19 virus influencing consumers’ behaviors, attitudes and expectations? Kantar has a pulse on the subject according to Chief Digital Officer Stephen DiMarco, with the recently released COVID-19 Barometer. 

This global study measures, “the perspectives of over 30,000 consumers across more than 50 markets. The study answers questions like, ‘How are behaviors and attitudes changing?’, ‘How should my brand be responding and supporting our consumers?’ and ‘Which touchpoints are now more relevant’ among others. It is designed to help the marketing industry help lead reactions within their businesses in the coming weeks and month,” he explained

The first wave of research was conducted between March 14-23, covering consumer attitudes, media habits, impact on online/offline purchase behavior, and expectations from brands. The second wave was conducted between March 27-30. 

Weisler: Have you seen differences and changes wave to wave?

DiMarco: Here are some of the key differences we saw in Wave 2 compared to Wave 1:

      --  Globally, 52% say their day-to-day lives have now been impacted by the current situation – up from 39% in wave 1.

       --  Financial concerns outweigh personal health concerns. 68% of people say the situation demands more proactive financial planning (up from 62% in wave 1), and 60% (vs 53% in wave 1) are worried about the economy’s ability to recover.

      --  Millennials are feeling the most severe impact financially. 78% of 18-34-year olds say their household income has or will be impacted by coronavirus, compared to 71% overall.

      --  National media channels, such as nationwide TV channels and newspapers, are still seen as the most trusted source of information, with 54% of people identifying them as a trustworthy source (up from 52% in wave 1).

      -- Trust in government websites has increased to 54%, vs 48% during wave 1 of the research, suggesting that as the severity of the pandemic increases, people are increasingly looking to their government for information and support.

      --  47% (41% in wave 1) of people expect companies to support hospitals during the crisis, while 39% (35% in wave 1) say that companies should be making themselves available to governments.

Weisler: Were there any surprises?

DiMarco: I think we were initially surprised by how much people are not concerned with getting sick. Their fears are around impact on their daily life (including financially) and the economy, but not actually contracting the virus. Trusted sources of information differ by country. When thinking through this it makes sense, but it does highlight some of the distrust of government/media in the US specifically.        We don’t see a lot of ‘new’ online purchasers, so while online shopping is becoming more prevalent it is not necessarily because of new people trying online shopping. People seem to think online purchasing will increase in the future, but going to the store is one of few excuses to leave the house for many.

Weisler: What about concerns by age and gender? 

DiMarco: With Age, generally, concern is high but grows with age; the 69% of the youngest (18-24) are concerned, and each age group progressively increases through to the 55-64-year-old group, where 79% have high concern. In China, concern is higher than the world average, with 90% or greater of each age group showing high concern. In Italy, concern is more aligned with the global average (in the 71-80% range), and follows the trend that younger consumers are slightly less concerned than their older counterparts. In the US, concern is lower than the global average in almost all age groups (except 35-44, 79% highly concerned). Even fewer younger people show high concern, only 64% of 18-24 and only 57% of 25-34. With Gender, generally, females show greater concern than men – 77% to 70%, respectively.

Weisler: What 50 countries are included?

DiMarco: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, UK, Ukraine, US, Vietnam 

Weisler: What are the differences in attitudes by country?

DiMarco: We looked at some of the key countries being covered around the pandemic – China, Italy, and the US. Concern regarding the virus seems to follow the timeline of geographic spread (greater in China, then Italy, then US). Italy indicates the greatest impact on daily life, while China has especially low expectations on the economic future. Consumers in the US and China indicate higher preparedness in terms of increased shopping.

 Weisler: And what about concerns by key markets? 

DiMarco: In China, concern is much higher (as we saw with age), but is even among females and males (93% & 94%). In Italy, concern is much higher in females (83%) than males (71%). In the US, concern is slightly higher among females (59%), but not a huge gap to male counterparts (56%). 

Weisler: What would you say are the topline takeaways? 

DiMarco: We found:

      --  Staff welfare should be a company’s first priority – brands looking after their employees and offering flexible working are the top two concerns of consumers.

      --  There is still a place for advertising – consumers still find this useful, and continuing to communicate will help brands recover faster. As media behaviors change, there are new opportunities to reach people – consider adapting online and social media strategies as the pandemic progresses in each market.

      --  Consider messaging and advertising strategy carefully – there’s a fine balance between being seen as helpful vs profiteering, so ensure the right tone to build brand.

      --  Financial concerns are a #1 worry, as more than half of people globally (52%) say their day-to-day lives have now been impacted by the situation.

      --  News consumption is up, as people seek to stay informed.

Weisler: What do you think this means for the future?

DiMarco: This will cause a forced trial of new brands because of price sensitivity, availability, where people are shopping could lead to long term changes in purchase behavior. Focus on hygiene is likely here to stay and could cause changes in behaviors: Sustainability, Cashless purchases, Hygiene related behaviors.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Three Views About the Global Advertising Market. An ARF Virtual Town Hall

For those of us in the media industry, these days of coronavirus uncertainties in personal health and finances also include concerns about the future of the media business, specifically the impact of the pandemic on advertising revenue. The ARF has been offering Virtual Town Halls on the subject with the most recent one on Global Advertising held on March 26. What are the long term impacts and best practices that we can adopt to plan for the future? 

Hosted by ARF President and CEO, Scott McDonald this Town Hall polled three industry experts on the subject – Laura Martin, Entertainment and Media Analyst, Needham & Co, Brian Wieser, Global President Business Intelligence, GroupM and Christian Polman, Chief Strategy Officer, Ebiquity.

A Look at the Market by Laura Martin

Challenges in Predicting - For Laura Martin, past predictions of the market were not prescient. Back in December 2019, both Zenith and WPP were predicting global ad spend increases of over 4% year to year. But by April, she anticipates that huge losses will result in the GDP cratering as unemployment claims skyrocket. “Economies are shutting down,” she stated and noted that it is not easy for professional forecasters look ahead with any certainty regarding GDP. Challenges abound. First they must be able to predict when the infection rate will peak in every country. Then, after peaking, they need to see how long it will take for consumer demand to return. Following that, they would need to know what percentage of small businesses will fail before consumer demand returns. “Because small businesses are a large part of overall advertising,” she explained.

But the U.S. is in Better Shape than Other Countries - Martin uses the stock market as a predictive indicator and currently, with its huge declines and high volatility, “the market is telling you (to expect) a negative $6 trillion forecast. But how much of that decline is (consumer) sentiment and how much of it is actual fundamental deterioration?” But there is cause for some optimism, even if only relative to other countries. The U.S. stock market represents 44% of the market capitalization of the world, 20% of all listed companies and has more highly valued companies on average. This means that the U.S. is better prepared to become more dominant over time compared to the rest of the world, “because the rest of world businesses are all a third the size.” So while we may be worried about small businesses in the U.S., “the rest of the world is actually in worse shape.” Another factor in our favor is that the U.S. is more productive than most other economies. But now may not be the time to buy, she warned. We don’t know how long it will take for the virus to dissipate and consumer sentiment is currently “anti-exuberance,” meaning depressed and cautious.

Uneven Impact on Global Advertising – Martin used the Travel category as an example of how the global advertising market could be negatively impacted. Travel and Hospitality, which has effectively shut down, was projected to edge out CPG in 2020 as the fifth largest digital advertising category representing 8.6% of ad spend. Because half of all Travel spending is on digital media, Martin posited that the impact from Travel advertising shutting down is three times worse on digital than it is on offline media. Further, Google Search represents 70% of Travel digital ad spend. The takeaway is that,” when travel silos turn off, different media is affected in different ways.” In addition, she noted that because 50-70% of TV inventory is bought in the prior May and is contractually obligated, TV is in better shape than digital (which is bought in scatter and by auction and can be cancelled immediately) to withstand market volatility.

A Cause for Optimism by Brian Wieser

Optimism with a Caveat - Brian Wieser is seeing some hope for optimism in the virus trends. He has been monitoring China where the latest reports show a slowing of the spread. “China has turned a corner,” he explained, it is, “a baseline to think about how this plays out in different countries.” But, he noted, there are three different kinds of countries and each type needs to be taken into account when projecting the impact on global ad spending. For Wieser, countries divide into, “those who were hit with the crisis and immediately took appropriate aggressive steps to address the matter, among those Japan, Singapore and South Korea. There are those countries that messed up for a month and then took aggressive steps and China is probably the best example. And then there are countries that messed up for a month. Messed up for another month and are hopefully taking the right steps. Italy is pretty clearly in that category. It remains to be seen how exactly different countries will follow.”

Small Businesses Have Severe Risks - However, Wieser believes that small businesses are the most immediately impacted and often “have the fewest resources to see them through a crisis such as this one with a limited ability to tap into the financial systems” for help. Unfortunately, “a lot of the support we’ve seen to date has not been focused on those companies and this is where the most severe risks are. Small businesses are being hit first and fast.” Lessons from the past financial crisis are not always the same lessons for today. Countries with a solid safety net provide some relief for small businesses but this not ubiquitous worldwide.

Supply Chain Considerations – Because China is getting back to business, Wieser is less concerned about and lost output that could disrupt the supply  chain, which at the time of the initial outbreak, seemed inevitable. But, “the bigger threat is that other countries around the world don’t take the right actions and then become the risk for China if demand doesn’t reemerge. The bigger point is that we can actually make this worse.” Specific public policies and actions by citizens and by individual countries will drive much of the outcome which at this point is an unknown.

What Should Brands Do? – In this time of uncertainty, brands should focus on ways to stay relevant and be helpful to consumers. Some companies are pivoting in ways that change their business in socially positive ways. Take, for example, “companies with alcohol products are finding ways to convert their production lines to hand sanitizer manufacturing. Anyone with a capacity to produce heavy metal based hardware can produce ventilators,” he explained. “But even brands that have nothing to do with the physical needs of emergency professionals  are finding ways to be helpful,” by altering their creative messaging such as C  O  C  A  C  O   L   A to encourage social distancing.

A Pragmatic View By Christian Polman

No Surprise - Any pandemic outbreak shouldn’t come as a surprise because, Polman asserted, if you go into the archives, policy health experts have been talking about this for a long time. A perfect storm has been created, he suggested, by Poor Planetary Health which risks the spread of infection, an Interconnected Global Supply Chain that is unsustainable, particularly the food supply chain, the rise of Nationalism and Unilateralism, “coming into mainstream politics which divides populations at a time when we need cooperation” and the Low Levels of Trust in Institutions, “which is getting worse and worse, at a time when trusted information is critical to inform the public and to guide policy making.”  

Long Term and Short Term – Polman believes that a long term need is finding a sustainable food chain, “and one that needs to be affordable.” In the short term, pressing needs include, “having a vaccine, a preventative treatment as well as long term testing.” He noted that, “consumer confidence is key here.” But this will be problematic as the latest studies show that confidence is in free fall. Yet the long term trend for GDP growth and ad expenditures, “is yo yo’d over a long period of time and quite consistently over the economic cycles. The rule of thumb is to expect a downturn every ten years. We were due one but I don’t think anyone foresaw how this one would be happening.”  But, he added, we always bounce back so those who can afford it should start to plan for the recovery.

Success Factors – The reasons for this economic downturn are different from previous ones. Brand Relevance has never mattered as much as now. Take for example hand sanitizers which are, according to Polman, counter-cyclical. But, “Media is a more normal example,” he stated. “Media consumption has been going up dramatically as it typically does in a down cycle as a function of more people who are unemployed. In this case, people unemployed and people stuck at home.” Agility is another success factor where making decisions fast is a big differentiator. Risk Taking is another; “It’s not just making decisions quickly but being able to take risks to take advantage of any opportunities,” he added. Long Term Orientation, “matters a lot. The companies that are long term oriented are the ones that are going to win.” And, “Consumer Trust has never mattered more. It will be critical,” he added.  He advised that brands, depending on the category, should maintain their market share of voice, “which you can do even with a lower budget…  It could take three years for brands to see the full impact of their investment. That’s why it’s such a key long term game.”

In a parting word of advice, Polman offered the following, “Every one of us has a role to play when it comes to leading and driving corporations. A lasting message from all of this is in any crisis, the rate of change will accelerate.” I wonder, can we handle any greater rate of change?

 This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com