May
18
Digital OOH and the Mighty Twitter
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Social Networking, digital ooh, twitter | Leave a Comment
Glad to see the fine folks at Leo Burnett in Frankfurt are paying attention to the right ideas in the Digital OOH space. When creative agencies start to notice things that might be cool and call Digital OOH “all the rage”, it’s time to start paying attention (Alex did!).
Thanks to Alexander, Head of Strategy over at Leo in Frankfurt for tipping me to this and glad to see you’re musing on it.
I had to laugh at the reference to Tweets in Newspapers though. That’s like reprinting the comments at a 1985 water cooler conversation in a prestegious medium – my how things have changed!
Sphere: Related Content
May
18
TV’s Effectiveness – Up or Down?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, TV, digital ooh | Leave a Comment
Nigel Hollis over at Millward Brown (who I originaly met through a debate on in-store DOOH and is also an advocate of the “Path-2-Purchase” philosophy I’ve been flogging) has a good article looking at TV’s effectiveness. He asks the question of whether TV is becoming more effective or less.
His basic premise is based on a few things, including studies done by my friend Joel over at the ARF.
Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer at the ARF, led an analysis of 388 case histories from seven different research agencies and found that TV is not only as effective as ever, it is possibly increasing in sales effectiveness. The findings (click here to view) clearly highlight TV’s leading role in building brand awareness. However, data from IRI’s BehaviorScan, where test markets are compared to matched controls, suggests that the sales response to increased TV weight has improved over the last 10 years. Commenting on the report’s findings in BrandWeek, Joel Rubinson said, “(People) want to zone out and watch TV and relax and let the communications wash over them. It’s an extension of the brand experience.” Joel concluded that TV is still an effective advertising platform.
In essence though, through the article, Nigel kind of answers his own question.
Of course, reach is the real difference between 1985 and now. TV’s reach is still unparalleled, but no one program will reach as many people today as its 1985 equivalent. To achieve those old levels of reach today, you must stitch together a much more intricate and costly media plan. But that does not mean the brand-building effectiveness of the medium has declined. Au contraire mon brave, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Maybe I’m a goofball but any time you have to pay more and work harder to get the same thing, your effectiveness has declined.
In any case, he has a good overview of the old media stand-by that argues that, for mega-spend brands, that can afford it, TV is still a great conversation starter for brands that can/will translate into sales – which I completely agree with.
For smaller Brands, however, or those who can’t or don’t want to spend the mega-millions, I’ve heard quite different thoughts on this. In speaking to the CEO of Lavalife earlier this year, she said that because of media fragmentation, the increasing cost of media and the decrease in reach, TV just wasn’t performing the way she needed it to anymore. She wanted newer, more effective solutions that allowed her to target – and not carpet-bomb, to deliver more effective results. Lavalife spends 10’s of millions a year on advertising and is very direct response oriented, so I take it to heart when she speculates it’s time to get out of a lot of TV.
Another interesting one to point to is Coke’s Vitamin water, which has grown to be a category leader without spending a dime in traditional mass! (until recently) (Let me tell you, their competitors are flummoxed) which argues that if you use other, less costly mediums really well, you can achieve striking success but it does mean you have to “work” at it, which is distasteful to some.
Nigel also argues that, hey, maybe…just maybe, the amount of consumer testing done on TV ads these days is really what’s keeping TV up and raising its effectiveness versus yesteryear:
Of course, I can think of another explanation for why TV’s effectiveness is increasing. Perhaps all that nasty pre-testing is actually paying off after all…but no, that would be an even sillier idea wouldn’t it?
Happy Monday
May
12
NTN buys iAM
Filed Under digital ooh | Leave a Comment
I had been wondering when I was going to see this announcement and who was going to be the suitor.
NTN just announced they would be purchasing iAM.TV, the 1400 panel network in bars and restaurants.
I was on the list of the original prospectus back in Sept/Oct time frame when the agent they hired was originally looking for folks to buy them. I always kinda liked iAm’s content strategy (although wasn’t sure about the advertising “pod” model) and they were one of the originals in the space that grew large.
On the flip side, NTN had retrenched a few months ago to re-evaluate their business and put a new strategic spin to the network they had, to deliver a better opportunity to buyers and advertising partners going forward. Obviously they felt that this would be an important fit to changing their strategy AND it grows their already large network by a substantial amount overnight.
My guess is cross-pollination of good content strategy with a hint of gaming?
The marriage seems a good one and consolidates a small piece of the bar/resto scene. That being said, in that category, for every consolidation comes another player in diverse market so we may have a few to go.
Sphere: Related ContentMay
12
Starcom Consolidates Addressable Advertising under SMGX
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh | Leave a Comment
I had heard about this a while ago but wasn’t expecting SMG to pull the trigger on this for a little while. I stand corrected.
Starcom has reorganized their buying/planning organizations once again and opened a new unit called Starcom Media Group Exchange (SMGX), according to Mediapost. In what is a bit of a surprise to me (although not a bad thing at all!), John Muszynski will become the Chief Investment Officer of the new group. I had originally heard that another person would be filling some shoes to head up the group, although that may still be announed in the future.
The new group will be taking on all of those pesky “addressable advertising” initiatives. You know – those hyper-targeted mediums like Digital Out-of-Home that don’t fit that well into the commoditized practices of buying and planning that TV, Print, Radio and traditional outdoor do. The ones that require new “digital” integration and planning across new media platforms to truly be successful long-term.
It is KEY to note that SMGX is starting with Digital OOH:
Muszynksi said the approach would be rolled out in phases. The first will begin with digital out-of-home media, local TV, sports and children’s television. The second would focus on online and national TV.
It is ALSO key to note that SMG is looking at this beyond the typical aggregation of dollars. i.e. many organizations were set up to get the cheapest prices for their customers given commoditized media. New mediums are not yet commoditized to those levels and need a bit of a different approach in the early days. There is a very large strategic impetus to this move which is kinda cool to see.
a big part of what we’re trying to do in terms of redefining that, is moving beyond the aggregation of dollars, and really locking in on some of the opportunities that the marketplace has or will have – most notably when we talk about addressability and measurement.
The pairing of measurement inside this will be quite interesting. Folks like OVAB have been trying to get holistic equivalents on research through some of their projects, which is great, but you really need a holding company like Publicis/Starcom to weigh in to do it across many industries to get a real knowledge of each industry. We’ll see how it comes together in the next little while but it should be interesting to watch this one evolve!
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