Going Local. An Interview with Rick Ducey, Managing Director at BIA

With the continued development in addressable campaigns and cross platform opportunities, national advertisers are now able to choose the best units for their desired consumer targets, even targeting on a local level. 

Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA, understands the importance of the local advertising marketplace. BIA offers local market data, intelligence and advisory services for those marketers interested in leveraging the value of local advertising.

Charlene Weisler: Where does BIA fit in the media ecosystem?

Rick Ducey: BIA is data-based consultancy and advisor primarily focused on informing buyers, sellers and solution providers about advertising, technology and business dynamics in the local media advertising market. Our flagship data service is a comprehensive 5-year forecast of media spending across all platforms targeting local audiences in nearly 100 business verticals.

Weisler: Where was the local media market before the pandemic, during the pandemic and at this point in time?

Ducey: As with the general economy, the local media market began 2020 in Q1 on a high note with expectations for increased political spending, increased ad buying based on consumer confidence in the economy, and more data allowing advertisers to better target audience segments, optimize campaigns and show ROI. Then the pandemic hit and all the rules changed. Ad buying was cancelled, paused, reduced and shifted from higher priced and less accountable traditional media to digital media. Overall, the ad market was in decline. There were some regional and business vertical variances. For example, the home improvement and telecom sectors showed strength as the workforce shifted to the new paradigm of home-based offices. And business closures, restrictions, re-openings varied by region and thus so did the demand for advertising by businesses in these regions. As we continue through Q4, especially with recent promise of a COVID-19 offering a 90% efficacy rate, optimism is returning to Wall Street and Main Street about a resurgent economy. We’re seeing upgraded expectations for advertising through the Q4 holiday peak season and on into 2021. The shift of the Summer Olympics to 2021 provides another boost in advertising opportunities.

Weisler: What are the critical elements to keep in mind for local commerce, sales and media at this time?

Ducey: BIA tracks ad spending by all types of businesses targeting local audiences – national, regional and local. There are strong positives for national buyers targeting local audiences in geo-targetable media including the ability to provide the most relevant content, match advertising pressure against brand messaging (e.g., regional product introductions, trying to improve sales in certain geographies, attract new sales or provide stronger competition, etc.). These are benefits national media cannot deliver at scale, especially when leveraging local media brands and trustworthy factors in (e.g., local TV news spots). For local and regional businesses, working with trusted local media outlets is cost-effective and leverages local media brands to their own local brands. The local media industry and the solution providers serving media companies are bringing ever better data, technology, accountability and workflow to the challenge of making the most effective ad investments. Always a moving target. We’re seeing a tremendous growth of interest, activity, spending and ROI in local media and expect it to continue into the future.

Weisler: What are the opportunities of going local?

Ducey: Local media advertising is becoming better informed with more actionable data that informs buying and selling across media platforms to find and activate target audiences and track results. The tech and data are providing better support all the time for key benefits including cross- platform budget allocations, frequency capping, dynamic creative optimization, addressability and attribution. Both buyer and seller teams are becoming less siloed when it comes to investments in traditional and digital media, and that’s where things need to evolve quickly. Just as the audience transits various media platforms in situational and purposed based use cases (e.g., audio in car, large screen TV sets for sports, mobile video for on the go) so too must buyers match their media allocations in smarter and smarter activations to reach and influence these local audiences. There is great opportunity to do so and we’re confident the market is head in this direction by getting smarter, offering new innovations and using data to better inform decisions.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

 

What Does Nielsen Voter Ratings Predict for the Primaries?

I have consulted the tarot cards and they say that Bernie Sanders will win the Iowa primary. But this prediction is not rooted in data so there is still time to target potential voters by using  Nielsen’s Voter Ratings solution which has just been released in an enhanced, cross-platform version this week. This syndicated solution enables buyers and sellers to tackle reach more strategically reach and understand media potential voters’ preferences.

Voter Ratings Enhancements

The main sources of data in the Voter Ratings arsenal include Nielsen National and Local TV, Audio, and Digital, as well as important secondary sources such as nationwide voter registration data. “Nielsen Voter Ratings combines advanced meter technology, big data, people-powered panels, and voter registration data to provide persons-level, monthly voter based insights,” noted Peter Bradbury, executive vice president, media, at Nielsen.

According to their recent announcement, Voter Ratings measurement capability has now expanded into all 208 TV DMAs by incorporating Code Reader and RPD+ markets, similar to and compatible with their standard Local TV measurement protocol. Further, Voter Ratings can make use of voter target segmentations available in Local Nielsen Media Impact for cross-media planning and optimization for political advertising.

Voter Ratings Mechanics

How does it work? It all starts with a media plan by the candidates designed to target key persuadable voter segments — whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, or unaffiliated — before they vote in any national or local election. What Voter Ratings offers is greater insight into what content the specific voter segments are consuming so advertisers can target their messages to the right audience at the right time.

"We're so excited to offer this enhanced solution that will give insights into voters’ media preferences and behaviors,” Bradbury explained. “Nielsen Voter Ratings integrates our TV and Audio panels with voter registration data to offer voter segments unique to Nielsen, a potential game-changer in today’s dynamic political climate. With the presidential primaries beginning in February, this timely solution will facilitate the ability to reach custom segments of key voters.”

Voter Ratings Advantages

Now that Voter Ratings includes every DMA, this Nielsen system can now boast scale, coverage, and a highly accurate representation of all voter types and their viewing styles, such as broadcast-only and over-the-top homes. It helps advertisers uncover unique programs, networks, stations, and digital properties that will reach and resonate with their key voters audiences.

“The Nielsen Political portfolio includes National TV Voter Ratings, as well as local TV, and audio voter ratings, local consumer and media insights from Nielsen Scarborough, and Nielsen Media Impact for local cross-platform planning and optimization for TV, radio and digital.” stated Bradbury. “Whatever the party affiliation, gender, or age of the voter, Nielsen Voter Ratings delivers persons-level granularity that provides greater insights and a deeper understanding of how the voting public consumes media.”

The value of being able to hyper target a specific voter segment cannot be understated. “According to Pew Research, only 7% of American voters are independents and non-leaners,” explained Erich Prince. “With such a polarized political landscape, the ability to target that small important segment of people is key. If you can do that effectively, that would be a sought after solution for political advertisers,” he concluded.

So, is Bernie Sanders a shoo-in in Iowa? Better ask Nielsen.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Big Push to Local Impressions-Based Campaigns by the TVB

Just because local TV has historically transacted on ratings, doesn’t mean that we need to continue to do it that way. Why buy and sell on ratings when there are better metrics to use? 

The TVB has embarked on a huge initiative to change the way local TV is transacted. They call it the Local TV Impressions Campaign which is dedicated to move the industry from ratings-based to impressions-based. To me, it is hardly revolutionary and is arguably prudent. 

Why Impressions?

The reason to do this is simple. “The bottom line is this,” explained Steve Lanzano, President and CEO, TVB, “All other medium are being transacted on impressions, even network TV. In order for us to be able to integrate all of the assets we have, whether it’s over the top, streaming, websites, etc, and put together an integrated package for an advertiser, we need to go from percentages to actual impressions.”

Lanzano believes that we have reached the tipping point to make the move to transact on impressions, especially in a world on the threshold of automated buying. This move to impressions will, “facilitate automated buying and give us some real traction,” he noted. In addition, the move to impressions will enable local TV to become more targeted by placing more data on top of the impressions.

Change Anxiety

And yet, despite the soundness of the idea, the local industry has been slow to move to impressions. “We know that people don’t like to change,” admitted Hadassah Gerber, Executive Vice President, Chief Research Officer, TVB, “That is probably the biggest challenge. As Kettering said, ‘The world hates change but it is the only thing that has brought us progress.’” She noted that while most video platforms are currently trading on impressions, local television is not.  This creates a friction point among buyers who have to do the conversion themselves to integrate local into a larger buy.

In agencies, “planning has always been based on ratings but we bought on impressions,” she stated. And today, advertisers and agencies are ready to standardize based on impressions. When the 4As membership was polled as to what was the best option for currency across channels, seven out of ten said it was impressions. “We are trying to make things as easy as possible for agencies to buy local television,” she concluded.

Moving Towards a Common Metric

“There are hidden audiences that advertisers want to access,” Gerber explained. Unfortunately, the reported ratings in local are only out to the tenth decimal point - not fine enough to realize the actual audiences that may be viewing. Oftentimes the rating is reported as zero. “They see zeros when they want to buy and they can’t buy programs when they are zero and they see zeros on their posts even though there could be audiences there. With impressions there are always audiences there”

The argument for impressions rests on the following. “Point number one is that this facilitates cross platform measurement,” she noted. “Point number two is uncovering the hidden audiences,” that may be reported as zero when, in fact, there is audience there. With impressions, advertisers can buy more programs, increase their reach and know that they will have greater accuracy for program performance. Stations are also interested in moving towards impressions because they have digital properties that can be linked to on air using impressions.

For those agencies that still fear the move to impressions, Gerber has some encouraging advice. “Buying on impressions does not preclude planning on GRPs.” That may be the impetus some agencies need to make the move.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Free the Data and Optimization Will Follow: Spectrum Reach's AudienceApp

When I first met Marci Cohen, set-top box data was being viewed as having potential, but not yet ready for activation. Since then, Cohen has honed her skills to become one of the best researchers in the field of data in advanced sales applications.

"I was very lucky to get exposure around data: I did a lot of work around the advanced products at Cablevision," she said. We had RFI at that time and dedicated channels and the reporting of those channels. Those opportunities morphed into overseeing the research into attribution of addressable advertising.

Cohen's career has always centered on television research, starting in local at Group W, then to the unwired network, ITN, and then to national syndication at BKN before moving to Cablevision. She's now in the role of vice president, market research and insights for Spectrum Reach, where she not only manages a staff of 44 people researching nearly 100 markets, but is also empowering local researchers to establish the value of local cable television. Additionally, Cohen is working with the rollout of Spectrum Reach's exclusive AudienceApp product for local sales, which she describes as a sales tool that "puts the power of set-top box and other data into the hands of our customers."
"We empower our customers with all of this data so they can find better opportunities for targeting and effective campaign proposals." Spectrum Reach is the first company that connects this capability across all of its markets. "One of our biggest missions," she added, "is to create an application that can take full advantage of audience data across all of the Spectrum markets."

The data and inventory are collected daily and is reported on a rolling-month basis. "It is close to real time," Cohen said. This tool optimizes the marketers' target consumer using all available data, looking at the available inventory at a given time for the campaign parameters, choosing the most effective opportunities, dayparts and networks to build out the campaign for the advertisers' budget, resulting in a proposal in either PowerPoint or an export file into Strata.

"We freed the data," she stated.

A Range of Data-Driven Services
The company has, according to Cohen, "put a huge investment in being able to leverage data for our advertisers' benefit." And with all of its first-party data aggregated and anonymized, maintaining consumer privacy is a core priority. The range of services and portals that Reach's data-set powers include Audience Finder, which Cohen describes as an internal research tool, AudienceApp, and a new do-it-yourself TV advertising platform for small businesses. All are designed to help advertisers feel the full impact of their advertising.

The majority of the way data is being used today from a sales perspective is optimizing on networks and dayparts based on a particular attribute or audience. Spectrum has the set-top-box data appended to multiple third-party datasets, including Epsilon, Experian and Polk.

"We are optimizing based on tuning behavior — what are the best networks and dayparts — but we can also look at the data on a custom basis, like how people are watching television across screens, because we have access to audience data from VOD and the Spectrum app." They are also able to do match-back workaround VOD and advertiser campaigns.

Proving the Results
Cohen and her team have examined AudienceApp campaigns compared to traditional campaigns using age and sex demographics. Cohen found that when advertisers used Audience App, "[they] are increasing impressions, the number of networks double, and there is an amount of efficiency because the CPM goes down."

She conducted two studies to prove this out — one in Q4 and the other in Q1 — with the following results: When comparing a traditional campaign to one created by Audience App, the app resulted in 3.7 more spots, 60 percent more household impressions, double the network counts, and -38 percent drop in CPM.

"Essentially, the app's algorithm maximizes on available inventory and the best network choices for our customers to reach their target audience," she added.

Keeping Up with the Changing Landscape
Cohen's team has recently changed its name to Market Research and Insights from Field Research. "Research's role continues to evolve as data is more readily available to craft the story as to why television is the number one brand-builder and should be looked on as the anchor to all media buys," she noted.

Over the span of her career, Cohen has seen local research evolve. "Some of it has changed dramatically. The tools and the data that are available have become more granular, and we are able to empower our researchers with several different options. Research's job is to build out the story as to why advertisers should be advertising on TV on any screen. It has become more complicated with more competition, so you really have to fight for your share," she concluded. "But with the data we now have available and innovations like AudienceApp, advertising on the undisputed leading media platform — from time-spent each day to its ability to influence online behavior — TV advertising is a better option than ever before. And it's our job to tell that story."

This article first appeared in MediaVillage.
 

“Pause Advertising” and Its Implications

Pause advertising is a new form of messaging where advertising automatically runs when viewers pause content. 

According to Variety, it’s currently being tested by streaming services Hulu and AT&T. The thought is that a contextual ad, such as an ad for soda as you pause to get something to drink, might spur greater viewer attention and retention. Also, it enables the creation of new messaging inventory at a time when the trend is to reduce the length and number of ads within pods while still meeting revenue goals.

This leads to questions and implications. For one, when someone presses pause, it’s usually to leave the viewing area to do something else, like get a beverage or take a bathroom break. That potentially leaves the ad to play to an absent audience. It can also be construed as intrusive. Pause often is exactly that, a pause from viewing anything at all.

Why Pause Advertising?
But there is good reason to consider pause advertising.

This article first appeared on the Videa blog.

Matrix Solutions Finds Value in Local Political Advertising Spend

Using data effectively to better understand the voting public is something that has galvanized political prognosticators and, in thinking about Cambridge Analytica, has also caused great public controversy. Researchers such as Frank Lutz, who recently presented his findings at the DPAA, talk about the emotional impact of negativity on a campaign. But sometimes dollars spent on a campaign have even greater impact than a message. 

Matrix Solutions has recently released a new study that examines the impact of local ad spend and believes that it has the potential to better connect and inform voters on the issues on the local market level in time for Election Day.

According to their press release, Matrix Solutions looked at more than $256 million worth of relevant political ad sales to determine individual and total local broadcast spend of Democratic and Republican senatorial candidates in the toss up states of Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia for the duration of each state’s 2018 general election campaign.

Matrix Solutions’ Mark Gorman, CEO, and David Weitz, Data Product Manager shared their views on the political value of their company’s data with MediaVillage:

Charlene Weisler: What is Matrix - tell me your company's role in the industry.

Mark Gorman: Matrix Solutions offers media companies solutions to help monetize content and cultivate ad sales approaches. Monarch, our flagship product, is a global ad sales platform capable of transforming chaotic data into actionable sales information. We manage more than $13 billion in media ad revenue and work with outlets in most local markets nationwide.

Weisler: Which senatorial candidates spent the most on local TV?

Gorman: According to our midterms ad spend map which tracked over $256 million worth of local TV political ad sales made on behalf of senatorial candidates in the top 10 Senate toss ups, the Democratic contenders have outspent their competitors by $9.9 million (4 percent). Of the Democrats, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill (D) has spent the most at $20.3 million. She is the incumbent in her race and was first elected back in 2006. Right now she is trailing behind her competitor, Josh Hawley (R), in the polls by 2 points and it’s evident she’s working hard to be re-elected. However, the highest spender across the board is Florida’s Rick Scott (R), who served as the state’s Governor since 2011 and is now running for the Senate. He’s known for using a significant amount of his funds on campaign advertising.

Weisler: What data is accumulated and how is it used to develop insights?

David Weitz: We aggregate booked revenue across nearly our entire customer base, which includes stations in nearly every state, and we pull the data when the industry category or revenue type is political. We also know the station, market, advertiser (in this case political entity), agency and office. To develop the insight we look at each political advertiser (nearly 10,000 of these) and normalize them across all customers. Then we research each to determine whether they are for local or national office, which office, and whether they are Democrat or Republican. In addition to this, research is done to see whom each PAC favors in each state.

Weisler: What is the criteria of campaign donations - do they include individual, PACS etc? Does the percentage of donation types impact results? (for example, more PAC money carries more impact?)

Gorman: Local TV ad spend accounted for in our report is inclusive of purchases made by the candidates themselves or in their favor by entities like PACs, political committees, other organizations, among others.

Weisler: What is it about political ad spend on the local level that can influence the election?

Gorman: Political ad spend holistically is a tool politicians should leverage to raise awareness of their campaigns, but ad spend at the local level can be viewed as a direct avenue for educating constituents on the issues and discussions most pertinent to the communities at hand. Politicians need to recognize local media as an instrument to reaching the eyes and ears of the actual voters – whether undecided or decided – who possess the voting power to support their campaigns at the ballots. Additionally, local media impressions help constituents recognize their important responsibility on Election Day and encourage overall voter turnout.