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Jan
7
Demographics, Behaviour and the Almighty Metric in Digital Signage
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, metrics
Adrian Cotterill’s recent article on measurement reminded me that I wrote an article back in December that I never got around to posting. I figured now might be a good time to get on that.
My comments and reiterations to his post are here
The metric and measurement business really is something else when you stop and take a look at it. On one hand, the agencies demand it to support and rationalize their buying decisions to the brands they service (i.e. if they are questioned on why they bought XYZ media, they can point to a study that supports the decision) while on the other hand, generally cut the numbers in half when making planning/buying decisions (i.e. if the numbers are exagerated, automatically reducing them on principle double guarantees that they made a responsible media investment)
I found a fun article on mediapost entitled “Demolish the Demo” which was so poignant I decided it might be a good conversation piece. The piece was written by Joe Mandese. Apparently, I must like this guy because usually when he writes, I have something to say about it :) I might have to meet him one of these days. Joe’s comments were surrounding TV and Google and Google’s tepid march into trying to sell traditional media and create a dashboard for advertisers to ultimately fine tune everything they do with regards to media planning and buying - especially in a way that doesn’t bastardize media, make it a commodity and sellable as remnant inventory. If you’ve read the chatter out on the net recently, you’ll know that Tim Armstrong’s recent presentation at the UBS media conference saw them shy away from saying how soon they’d be ready to attack this animal. Whether or not you believe him on their timing or not is something entirely different :)
Interestingly, if you think about it, we in the Digital Signage business go to the big boys in research not only for PR, acclaim, support and credibility but also simply to “fit in” to the generally accepted support systems which govern the entire media industry (i.e. we get the research done by research houses who support traditional media so that we can look like traditional media and allow media planners (who are used to buying TV, Radio and Print) to evaluate and buy us in the same way).
Apparently Google just bought into Neilsen’s data and licensed it to support their initiatives, according to Joe:
The development that’s had me thinking the most was Google’s deal to license demographic ratings data from Nielsen. This surprised me for several reasons. First and foremost was that I thought the industry was heading in the opposite direction, that demos were doomed, and that it would be Nielsen that would ultimately need to license data from Google — not the other way around.
Joe then goes on to qualify his surprise:
Ultimately, I think that is true, and the industry will shift to a census-based measurement of actual viewing behavior, scrapping long-used surrogates like demographics. The reasons: 1) Demos are poor proxies for actual consumer targets and genuine consumer behavior; 2) behavioral targeting is far superior, because it is based on, well, actual viewing behavior; and 3) such data is abundant and is slowly finding its way into the commercial advertising marketplace thanks to companies like Google, TNS, TiVo and others.
Where this becomes a very interesting conversation point for us is NOT on the metrics or what they mean coming from the big research houses but what it means to how we price and allow people to BUY our media. I’m a big fan of wanting to sell on a quasi GRP because, quite frankly, it fits in to how people have bought their media for decades. That doesn’t mean I’m right.
Internet advertising properties/publishers and networks are now trying to integrate behavioural targeting very heavily into their sales . Look at Yahoo and Microsoft’s recent acquisitions of major behavioural ad networks/software. Why are they doing this? Because demographic/census based buys and general clickthrough/acquisition programs as they exist right now are not the ultimate in scientific/statistical and performance based ad programs. They mean you’re only adopting pure action based decision making into your online ad programs and leaving money on the table for additional sales potentials.
As per my earlier comments, we in the Digital Signage business buy into what big research supplies us with because it helps support a decades old buying process. As Joe relates on Google and their buying into Nielsen, it has nothing to do with Google wanting to adopt it but everything to do with it simply making the sales process easier and justifying their existence against traditional media:
And the real reason for Google’s adoption of Nielsen demo data is all about people. No, not those 18-49 or men or women 25-54, but the people who are used to buying those demographics. The real reason Google is appending its digital clickstream data with Nielsen demo data is that it’s the way people are used to buying television.
…I feel like a broken record sometimes in my support of this argument:) I was in the Internet ad business back in the late 90s/early 00s and watched Nielsen’s approach then with interest. Ultimately, they were not the ultimate winners in the business…folks like comScore were…which created a whole new breed of research house.
Where this ultimately leads for Digital Signage could be the idea that while demos will always be a portion of the sales pitch due to the venue and DMA based approach we have to take, behavioural and attitudinal auditing systems, whether real time or post campaign will govern the mediums value and ultimately where the placements will truly occur based on the profit taking needs of the Brands. This could be really great news for folks like TruMedia and VideoMining if they can do it at scale - and fast.
If we as an industry can move to a behaviourally based metric (tied closely to a demographic based metric for the next 5 years), we stand to be able to truly support the CFO/shareholder modelled version of marketing and advertising that exists today and may be able to tap into the emergence of performance based budgets that, as Joe alludes to, are becoming the norm.
It’s somewhat amusing to know that Google needs to do the same thing all of us do (cough up the dough for big research’s stamp of approval), simply to fit in and get a larger share of the ad budgets that the media planners/buyers control - but we do all need to do it.
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