2 JUN 2016 BY: LEIGH ANDREWS
While yesterday’s presentations were all about TV and core measurement, today switched focus to content and advertising as TV’s bedfellows. This involves focusing more on what is actually measured than on the art of measurement. Kantar’s Mandy Pooler and Stuart Murphy, CEO of Doody, kicked things off with a fireside chat focused on Murphy’s work at Sky.
To do so you need to know more than just what your audience watches but also why they watch, based on in-depth data into what people actually think and how they relate to problems in the real world. That’s why Murphy says research into show ratings is mere rear-view assessment. Great research also tells you things about your competitors and what your audience actually wants. It’s as simple as that, and this is the secret to the success of shows like Penny Dreadful, Mad Men and An Idiot Abroad.
Multi-platform, -screening TV focus
Moving on to branding, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the teaser ad in the newspaper or online banner they saw while Googling what to cook for dinner, or the roadside poster that caught their attention in rush hour traffic that got the audience interested in your TV show, use it all to reinforce their love of the show – they don’t necessarily know what they love. It’s about adding context to the content. Murphy concluded by paraphrasing the Maya Angelou quote that at the end of your life you won’t remember what people said or did, but how they made you feel. Keep in mind that it’s all about how the audience feels.
TV’s integrated future: The SA advertisers’ view
Another highlight was the conversation led by Rob Powell, CEO of Kantar’s consumer Insights in SA with Enzo Scarcella, CMO of Telkom as well as Claire Niehaus, media manager from Distell, who spoke of the reality of working in an environment of multifaceted brands, in a brave new world that offers more diverse communication options than ever before. Media budget justification thus requires understanding the role of each brand in your portfolio, the parameters of your product, as well as where you’ll get more impact and engagement as opposed to just pushing the brand.
They concurred that with the rise of digital, it’s important to look at how the channels work together instead of just using one like TV, and to then enhance that with second- and third-screen content. South Africa definitely needs more research across all media channels, especially as local consumers don’t have as much data to stream as internationally. Scarcella said with media as the science of marketing, data is fundamental, but the area of programmatic is still murky locally, even for digital. He echoed Murphy’s earlier point that consumers watch programmes, they don’t watch channels, which proves the point that content is definitely still king, especially on TV. In terms of change, Scarcella said to get ready for TV ads beyond 30 seconds.
The ‘P’ word: Programmatic TV
Touching on programmatic, media effectiveness and the role of data for the future, Antonio Wanderley of Kantar IBope Media spoke of how real-time ratings deliver a competitive advantage.
This was a core focus on the day, with attendees sharing best practice on targeting a specific audience demographic as programmatic swiftly spreads from the realm of digital to TV ads. As Scarcella mentioned, it’s a murky world to many. Andy Brown of Kantar Media unmuddied the concept a little when moderating a session on programmatic coming to a screen near you. This is obviously better for advertisers due to enhanced targeting and reaching customers along different points of the purchase path, coupled with the decreased cost of the ad spots. There are similar issues with programmatic TV as with digital programmatic, and the sheer complexity of it leads to concerns of transparency, said Jane Clarke of CIMM in the US.
But whatever the purpose, data only has value in how well you use it. With 150 attendees from 41 countries in the room, the day ended with the audience-inclusive debate made popular at last year’s summit, based on interaction and engagement with the seminar app. A quick world cloud tally of responses showed the most popular topic learning attendees would take home was around return path data or RPD, as well as programmatic and data.
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