Two Cents

Tuesday saw Kyle and Jackie O return to their breakfast slot on 2DayFM. The show no doubt received one of its highest ratings ever as people tuned in to hear what they had to say about that stunt gone wrong.

How did it rate? We’ll never know. Unfortunately radio ratings don’t allow us to measure shows on an individual day by day basis in the same way TV does, it averages ratings over a survey period.

That got me thinking about some of the other figures I’d like to see from the media, like sectional readership in newspapers. The papers have this information, yet they won’t release it to the public… and I can only think of one reason for withholding that data – the numbers don’t paint a good picture for individual sections and releasing them would reduce the likelihood of selling space at the rates they currently charge.

Recently there’s been debate regarding publishers providing newspaper and magazine circulation figures on a per issue basis. Once again the information is there but publishers won’t release it.

What will it take for us to gain access to such data?

Perhaps if all advertising agencies grouped together and commissioned their own research on things like individual section readership and day by day radio listenership, it would then create a benchmark for agencies to plan against.  If the media didn’t agree with these findings they might be forced to finally release their own data which they’ve been so secretively guarding.

This may not be the answer given the cost such research would command, but just taking what could be compared to a United Nations stand and hoping for the media to come clean won’t achieve much either. If the figures were to their advantage they would have already released them.

Is there anything we can do to increase transparency in the advertising space we purchase?

Martin Durek is a Planner/Buyer at BCM Sydney

The Internet is great isn’t it? Everything can be measured (apparently). And with all this measurement comes things like new pricing models for advertising which are based on cost per click, cost per acquisition, etc. These approaches do much to position interactive as perhaps the most accountable medium ever. Digital Marketing Evangelists crow on blogs across the net about its accountability and contrast and compare this to a time when a medium was measured against archaic metrics like ‘opportunities to see’, ‘reach and frequency’ and ‘frequency distribution’ (snicker, snicker!!).

Now I for one like measurement as much as the next guy. I think it’s a reasonable expectation that what we do works and works well. But I’ve got to be honest I’m not all that crazy about the potentially obsessive nature of measuring and reporting on a whole bunch of stuff just because we can. Too much information can, believe it or not, prevent good decisions just as sure as too little information.

I fear the path that’s currently being trodden is limiting interactive to being viewed primarily as a direct marketing channel – and if you look purely at click through rates, for the likes of display advertising (average .01%)  not even a particularly effective one at that.

You see the problem I have with obsessive measuring is it doesn’t properly acknowledge:

1. Consumer behaviour and THE PATH TO PURCHASE
2. The size of the available ‘buyer-ready’ market at any particular MOMENT IN TIME
3. The strength of branding and the impact this has OVER TIME
4. The largely untapped potential for the net to contribute to branding objectives

I think Interactive media’s strength, in terms of its ability to immediately measure response, is also potentially its limitation. The measurement zealots want to measure things straight away, in ‘real time’; they want to modify immediately; they want to improve immediately. But advertising and the consumer’s relationship with it doesn’t work nearly so neatly, or perhaps, more to the point nearly so quickly.

Consider these two scenarios for a minute (I’m sure you could add more)

1. A consumer is impacted by an ad they see on the net. They make a decision to purchase 2 weeks later (God forbid) offline. So has the ad been valuable and effective? I would argue strongly, yes. But not if your measurement is click-throughs it hasn’t.
2. A punter decides to fly Qantas for reasons they have trouble articulating (let’s face it they’re hardly gonna say it’s because they saw a youth choir belting out a Peter Allen song are they!?!). But really what impact has said ad had when they go searching for cheap flights on Google and a Qantas deal presents itself? I’m guessing more than they realise. Yet Google, in the eyes of the metric zealots gets all the credit.

I guess what I’m saying is that the impacts and value of various channels is not as neatly compartmentalised as the Measurement Evangelists may have us believe. Longer term the impact of being uber-obsessed with single channel metrics means we may be limiting activities only to those that can prove a reasonable and immediate ROI. Advertising isn’t a perfect science and whilst post campaign analysis is important, over doing it comes with risk. The risk is limiting channel options, stifling brand creativity and missing opportunities. Pretty big risks I reckon.

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the US, perhaps summed it up best when called for a ‘creative renaissance’ on the internet. He said the net has become an unthinking hostage to a direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands.

Do you agree?

Kevin Moreland is a Partner at BCM
*and does actually know how to spell ‘metrics’

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to give a presentation to the Australian Marketing Institute in Brisbane. My chosen topic was ‘Branding in the Interactive Space‘ – a topic very close to my heart here at BCM.

I really wanted to put together a presentation that demonstrated exactly how brands are enhancing their brand in the interactive space. I started by building the case for interactive in strengthening brand metrics – thanks to the IAB’s Sultana Bran study, we’re more certain than ever that interactive can impact on consumer sentiment like all other forms of media. Following that, I talked about how engagement happens online – via knowing your brand, and having great ideas that result in amazing interactive experiences. Finally, I demonstrated the importance of simply listening to the online conversation about your brand, and influencing it where appropriate.

I really enjoyed giving the presentation, and many thanks to Kevin and Jo here at BCM for helping me pull it together. The preso makes more sense with the notes, but you’ll have to click through to Slideshare to read them, just select the ‘comments’ tab below the preso. If you have any questions, please just drop me a line in the comments.