Wednesday
Extending Your Reach
Fragmentation of media consumption is at an all-time high, so using online in conjunction with traditional media can help reach people who are light users of the other mediums.
If you’ve worked for any spell at all in advertising, you have no doubt encountered a pattern of words, phrases, formulae and not a few platitudes that pertain to the industry. Their use identifies one as an insider, even if those making the utterances have no idea what they are talking about.
The word that stands out most among the fray of cabalistic turns of the phrase is “reach.”
What is nice about ‘reach’ when applied as a technical term in advertising is that is means exactly what it does in layman’s use, with the biggest difference perhaps being that often times there is a percentage associated with it when used as a technical advertising term.
Reach is the big, bad, and most often all-important communication delivery variable when considering different advertising programs. A large reach figure translates into a large number of persons touched by one’s messaging. Somewhere along the marketing chain of analysis, this figure can be converted into some number of widgets sold. Hence the importance of the figure and why advertisers work so hard to make it so big.
In the days of old, the electronic medium best suited to accomplishing the task of creating ‘reach’ was that of television. An advertiser could put a commercial on All In The Family and have talked to some 40% of the total television viewing population.
These days, seven million households can constitute a major success in television programming and draw advertisers like an ice cream truck does children.
But television has a lot more to compete with these days, not only with other media, but with itself al well. Plenty of people still watch television with regularity, but they are found all over the spectrum now. The rich mosaic of cable television and niche programming has made it such that only slivers of audience, albeit still significant overall, can be found at any one time in any one place.
And lest ye forget those who have no regular viewing pattern but are important to a brand successfully impacting its bottom line. What about those who are not regular enough television views to be impacted by television advertising?
How big can an advertiser get its reach in the current environment?
There is a limit to how big the number can be made given a fixed budget and a fractious media landscape.
Consumers have more media choices available to them than they ever did before. Fragmentation of media consumption is at an all-time high, making it tougher for marketers who have traditionally used television to extend reach to their key target audiences. But using online in conjunction with traditional media can help to reach those people who are light consumers of TV and other traditional media.
The evidence is present for all to see who are willing to open their eyes and look. In the last two years, the IAB has done the most to tell the world about what kind of impact online media can have on the communication delivery of an advertising campaign.
With the first XMOS report (Cross-Media Optimization Study) done in cooperation with MSN, Marketing Evolution, The ARF, and Dynamic Logic partnering with Forrester which showed the incremental lift in traditional branding metrics yielded by slight shifts in spending away from television and into online, the IAB has led the way in making the case for the Web deserving a seat at the media mix table. This first study was done for Dove’s Nutrium Bar, and it showed that by taking a very small number of dollars earmarked for television and redistributing it towards online, an advertiser could affect its overall brand metrics in the affirmative by a combined 8% (from both a lift in reach and frequency in online).
This is achievable by taking money out of television that does not negatively impact the medium’s reach, but rather takes the average frequency down from 6.0 to 5.5. This essentially means that by lowering the average number of times a heavy television viewer sees an ad, brand metrics can be raised without changing the overall amount of spend in an advertising budget.
The reason this is important to note is because of the very thing discussed at the beginning. Due to more channels of distribution available for televised content (i.e. more networks, programming, etc.), an advertiser is contending with a more diluted communication vehicle by which to reach a member of the target audience. This is not so important when the entirety of an advertiser’s audience is to be found among the heaviest of television watchers; the advertiser can be assured that at some point its intended will eventually be exposed to the message in one of a multitude of broadcast vehicles.
But what of the less enthusiastic television viewer? How does an advertiser extend its reach to those beyond the pale of primetime TV?
The IAB XMOS reports show time and again that by making a modest adjustment to the advertising budget that is destined for traditional media, and most commonly, television, advertisers can extend their reach to those persons not readily available in the television audience.
The reason for this is because at any given point in time, a segment of a target audience is NOT watching TV or reading a magazine when the advertiser has guessed that they would be. Again, this is due to there being so many other things to do and so many other media to engage on the part of the individuals who make up this audience.
In March of this year, DoubleClick released a study done in concert with Nielsen//NetRatings and IMS that demonstrated this phenomenon.
This study showed that online media can contribute gross reach, in the form of GRPs (gross rating points) to advertising campaigns and is especially efficient at extending reach into audiences that rarely watch television. As each ratings point can potentially translate into more than one million consumers, even slight shifts in reach can greatly impact the effectiveness of a media plan. Something to note, however, is that if an advertiser is interested in a specific audience, and not just any audience, the impact on TRPs (targeted rating points) can even be more significant.
With current media fragmentation, TRPs (targeted audience points) are a better way to assess media. “GRPs do not show the tendency for campaigns that primarily use television to overreach (achieve very high frequencies) those who watch television often, while under-reaching (achieving less than optimal frequency) those who rarely watch television,” states the study. As more rarified members of a target audience—for example professionals, teens or working women—are spending less time watching TV and more time online, they cannot be efficiently reached through television alone.
The XMOS done for Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand early this year demonstrated what is meant here.
The company allocated 75% of its overall advertising dollars to television, 23% to print, and 2% to online. After analyzing each medium’s effectiveness in boosting aided brand awareness, brand image, purchase intent, and bundled trial intent, the company found that online works in tandem with offline advertising to deliver 42% of the audience that is only lightly reached -- or not reached at all -- by television.
What those coming to any of this information should keep in mind, however, is that when all is said and done, it isn’t about the amount of money that is necessary to extend reach. It is what kind of media is necessary and how much of that media is necessary.
Many of the studies that discuss reallocation of spending to online make the mistake of focusing on just that: spending.
"Online should get 15% of a budget," or "the percentage of spending should be based on what percentage of an audience is spending its time with the given medium."
The reason for this is, in large part, because clients often times speak in this way. More times than I care to remember, they pose their query as one of a matter of dollars. I can appreciate that, since brand managers and marketing managers have bosses who frequently refer to their allocations in terms of percentages of a total budget.
But this doesn’t really make sense. It is like the Hindu myth that says the world is upheld by four elephants standing on the back of a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise is standing on, one is forced to answer “it is tortoises all the way down.”
When putting together a media plan, it is the communication delivery goals that dictate which media are to be used and how much each medium should be used. These communication delivery goals are based on historical, or projective, cause-and-effect relationships between the amount of inventory that runs in a given medium and the results that medium can yield. Basically, a certain level of media weight results in some satisfaction of a business goal. The basis for a TRP (targeted rating point) goal is an estimate of some number of TRPs resulting in some quantifiable movement towards the achievement of a predetermined business goal.
But this quantifiable movement is based on how much communication is necessary, or how much “reach” need be extended through which media. The dollars allocated towards a given medium to purchase the necessary amount of inventory to make this happen is what becomes the spending per medium.
If as the media planner on a campaign I've decided that TV, Print, and Online are the media being used, and upon further examination, have found that the weight levels necessary for each medium in order to accomplish my client's goals are 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3, then my media weight distribution -- in this instance, let us call them impressions -- is even among each media. This means TV gets 33% of media weight; Print gets 33%, and Online gets 33%. But if TV costs are twice as great as Print’s, and Print costs are twice as much as Online’s, then my budget allocations are 57% for TV, 29% for Print, and 14% for Online.
What is indisputable is that in many cases, no one medium can get the job done by itself. The use of multiple media is paramount in effectively extending reach to as many potential customers as possible. As peoples in motion, constantly looking for the next media high while engaging our regular favorites only to watch them become media lows, advertisers need to move quickly and in the same environments. Online is one of those environments.
If you’ve worked for any spell at all in advertising, you have no doubt encountered a pattern of words, phrases, formulae and not a few platitudes that pertain to the industry. Their use identifies one as an insider, even if those making the utterances have no idea what they are talking about.
The word that stands out most among the fray of cabalistic turns of the phrase is “reach.”
What is nice about ‘reach’ when applied as a technical term in advertising is that is means exactly what it does in layman’s use, with the biggest difference perhaps being that often times there is a percentage associated with it when used as a technical advertising term.
Reach is the big, bad, and most often all-important communication delivery variable when considering different advertising programs. A large reach figure translates into a large number of persons touched by one’s messaging. Somewhere along the marketing chain of analysis, this figure can be converted into some number of widgets sold. Hence the importance of the figure and why advertisers work so hard to make it so big.
In the days of old, the electronic medium best suited to accomplishing the task of creating ‘reach’ was that of television. An advertiser could put a commercial on All In The Family and have talked to some 40% of the total television viewing population.
These days, seven million households can constitute a major success in television programming and draw advertisers like an ice cream truck does children.
But television has a lot more to compete with these days, not only with other media, but with itself al well. Plenty of people still watch television with regularity, but they are found all over the spectrum now. The rich mosaic of cable television and niche programming has made it such that only slivers of audience, albeit still significant overall, can be found at any one time in any one place.
And lest ye forget those who have no regular viewing pattern but are important to a brand successfully impacting its bottom line. What about those who are not regular enough television views to be impacted by television advertising?
How big can an advertiser get its reach in the current environment?
There is a limit to how big the number can be made given a fixed budget and a fractious media landscape.
Consumers have more media choices available to them than they ever did before. Fragmentation of media consumption is at an all-time high, making it tougher for marketers who have traditionally used television to extend reach to their key target audiences. But using online in conjunction with traditional media can help to reach those people who are light consumers of TV and other traditional media.
The evidence is present for all to see who are willing to open their eyes and look. In the last two years, the IAB has done the most to tell the world about what kind of impact online media can have on the communication delivery of an advertising campaign.
With the first XMOS report (Cross-Media Optimization Study) done in cooperation with MSN, Marketing Evolution, The ARF, and Dynamic Logic partnering with Forrester which showed the incremental lift in traditional branding metrics yielded by slight shifts in spending away from television and into online, the IAB has led the way in making the case for the Web deserving a seat at the media mix table. This first study was done for Dove’s Nutrium Bar, and it showed that by taking a very small number of dollars earmarked for television and redistributing it towards online, an advertiser could affect its overall brand metrics in the affirmative by a combined 8% (from both a lift in reach and frequency in online).
This is achievable by taking money out of television that does not negatively impact the medium’s reach, but rather takes the average frequency down from 6.0 to 5.5. This essentially means that by lowering the average number of times a heavy television viewer sees an ad, brand metrics can be raised without changing the overall amount of spend in an advertising budget.
The reason this is important to note is because of the very thing discussed at the beginning. Due to more channels of distribution available for televised content (i.e. more networks, programming, etc.), an advertiser is contending with a more diluted communication vehicle by which to reach a member of the target audience. This is not so important when the entirety of an advertiser’s audience is to be found among the heaviest of television watchers; the advertiser can be assured that at some point its intended will eventually be exposed to the message in one of a multitude of broadcast vehicles.
But what of the less enthusiastic television viewer? How does an advertiser extend its reach to those beyond the pale of primetime TV?
The IAB XMOS reports show time and again that by making a modest adjustment to the advertising budget that is destined for traditional media, and most commonly, television, advertisers can extend their reach to those persons not readily available in the television audience.
The reason for this is because at any given point in time, a segment of a target audience is NOT watching TV or reading a magazine when the advertiser has guessed that they would be. Again, this is due to there being so many other things to do and so many other media to engage on the part of the individuals who make up this audience.
In March of this year, DoubleClick released a study done in concert with Nielsen//NetRatings and IMS that demonstrated this phenomenon.
This study showed that online media can contribute gross reach, in the form of GRPs (gross rating points) to advertising campaigns and is especially efficient at extending reach into audiences that rarely watch television. As each ratings point can potentially translate into more than one million consumers, even slight shifts in reach can greatly impact the effectiveness of a media plan. Something to note, however, is that if an advertiser is interested in a specific audience, and not just any audience, the impact on TRPs (targeted rating points) can even be more significant.
With current media fragmentation, TRPs (targeted audience points) are a better way to assess media. “GRPs do not show the tendency for campaigns that primarily use television to overreach (achieve very high frequencies) those who watch television often, while under-reaching (achieving less than optimal frequency) those who rarely watch television,” states the study. As more rarified members of a target audience—for example professionals, teens or working women—are spending less time watching TV and more time online, they cannot be efficiently reached through television alone.
The XMOS done for Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand early this year demonstrated what is meant here.
The company allocated 75% of its overall advertising dollars to television, 23% to print, and 2% to online. After analyzing each medium’s effectiveness in boosting aided brand awareness, brand image, purchase intent, and bundled trial intent, the company found that online works in tandem with offline advertising to deliver 42% of the audience that is only lightly reached -- or not reached at all -- by television.
What those coming to any of this information should keep in mind, however, is that when all is said and done, it isn’t about the amount of money that is necessary to extend reach. It is what kind of media is necessary and how much of that media is necessary.
Many of the studies that discuss reallocation of spending to online make the mistake of focusing on just that: spending.
"Online should get 15% of a budget," or "the percentage of spending should be based on what percentage of an audience is spending its time with the given medium."
The reason for this is, in large part, because clients often times speak in this way. More times than I care to remember, they pose their query as one of a matter of dollars. I can appreciate that, since brand managers and marketing managers have bosses who frequently refer to their allocations in terms of percentages of a total budget.
But this doesn’t really make sense. It is like the Hindu myth that says the world is upheld by four elephants standing on the back of a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise is standing on, one is forced to answer “it is tortoises all the way down.”
When putting together a media plan, it is the communication delivery goals that dictate which media are to be used and how much each medium should be used. These communication delivery goals are based on historical, or projective, cause-and-effect relationships between the amount of inventory that runs in a given medium and the results that medium can yield. Basically, a certain level of media weight results in some satisfaction of a business goal. The basis for a TRP (targeted rating point) goal is an estimate of some number of TRPs resulting in some quantifiable movement towards the achievement of a predetermined business goal.
But this quantifiable movement is based on how much communication is necessary, or how much “reach” need be extended through which media. The dollars allocated towards a given medium to purchase the necessary amount of inventory to make this happen is what becomes the spending per medium.
If as the media planner on a campaign I've decided that TV, Print, and Online are the media being used, and upon further examination, have found that the weight levels necessary for each medium in order to accomplish my client's goals are 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3, then my media weight distribution -- in this instance, let us call them impressions -- is even among each media. This means TV gets 33% of media weight; Print gets 33%, and Online gets 33%. But if TV costs are twice as great as Print’s, and Print costs are twice as much as Online’s, then my budget allocations are 57% for TV, 29% for Print, and 14% for Online.
What is indisputable is that in many cases, no one medium can get the job done by itself. The use of multiple media is paramount in effectively extending reach to as many potential customers as possible. As peoples in motion, constantly looking for the next media high while engaging our regular favorites only to watch them become media lows, advertisers need to move quickly and in the same environments. Online is one of those environments.
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