Frenzied conversations about the state of the online advertising industry continued through Day Two and Three of the Summit at Amelia Island Plantation in Florida.
One Unified View of Reach, Frequency and Performance
Frenzied conversations about the state of the online advertising industry continued through Day Two and Three of the iMedia Brand Summit at Amelia Island Plantation in Florida. Attending the event were roughly 50 major traditional marketers who, collectively, represent billions of dollars in annual marketing and advertising budgets, in addition to significant online publishers, top research companies, third-party ad serving tool providers, and interactive marketing service specialists.
For years, interactive advertising has lived in a measurement vacuum, said Doug Weaver, president of Upstream Group, Inc., moderator of Friday's early morning panel discussion. Online measurement and metrics just haven't looked, sounded or even felt like what advertisers are used to in the traditional world. "We haven't given the marketer the online equivalents of reach/frequency curves, gross rating point or share. Instead, we've asked that a whole new language and set of measurement protocols be adopted."
But now that traditional marketers are looking to spend more dollars online, it's a much more troubling equation. What is the ultimate commonality of reporting across media, and what standards should be applied?
"Online is held to a much higher standard than traditional media," said Kelly Reed, director of brands and marketing communications for British Airways. "Sure, reach and frequency are simple units of currency, but that's only one part of the equation."
So where does one begin to reconcile the terminology and practices of online and offline advertising measurements? Where is the one unified view of reach, frequency and performance?
Most of the panelists had more questions than answers.
Executing the Multimedia Deal
Five or so years ago, the initial takeoff of Internet advertising was fueled by some big multi-year Internet marketing alliances, said Tony Romeo, CEO of Strategic Dynamics, who moderated Friday's afternoon panel discussion on how to make the multimedia deal a reality. Advertisers jumped in with AOL, MSN and Yahoo! and made commitments, media buys that put the Internet firmly and unavoidably on the map. But now, while such deals have slipped somewhat from favor, a new bred of deal is emerging, the cross-media deal. By definition, these deals are not just about the Internet. Indeed, some would argue that they are hardly at all about the Internet. But traditional advertisers and multi-media conglomerates seem focused on contracts that link the media buy across multiple channels.
But are the benefits of cross-media deals truly significant, or are they just a myth? Dr. Romeo asked the panelists. And if we choose to engage in the cross-media deal, how do we make it work?
Kraft Foods signed two cross-platform deals last year to build a "strategic advantage," said Kathleen Olvany Riordan, the company's vice president of Internet and emarketing. "We asked ourselves, how do we ... evolve to the point where our world-class brands fit into the lives of consumers?" Riordan said. "By going deeper, instead of just broader. That's the advantage of being able to work with one or two strategic partners."
And what can a traditional marketer accomplish with a cross-media deal?
"A competitive advantage that ties all these different platforms together," said Chris Marentis, senior vice president of interactive marketing for America Online, Inc.
Added Brad Simmons, vice president of media services for Unilever: "But it's a lot of work to really developing a partnership with someone where you each have a stake in the other's success."
From the Department of 'For What It's Worth'
According to results from an IAB/ARF/MSN study, presented by Rex Briggs, principal with Marketing Evolution:
- In order to compete with content on a Web page, all you really need to do is "get some of the people to pay attention some of the time."
- More important than consumers looking at ads is whether the ads move sales.
- While we debate whether online budgets should be one or two or three percent, consumers have already made it 10 to 15 percent of their media time. "This shift leaves a chasm between where our budgets are more efficient and where we're spending today."
- What can advertisers do? (1) Form a working group that includes key brand, agency and measurement team members; (2) Examine your target audience share of time with each media; (3) Make your measurements relative to effectiveness and priority; (4) review and update your marketing mix annually.
The Internet At Work
According to a March 2002 report by the Online Publisher's Association: the Internet is the fastest growing medium in history; Internet use is concentrated among the young, the educated and the wealthy; the Internet is unique among all media in the degree to which it is used in the workplace; and on a typical weekday, at-work users spend more time online than they spend watching television.
In fact, daytime on the Internet is prime time for this audience, according to the report. "Research into media consumption by time of day revealed that no medium other than TV at night commands as large a share of the available audience."
What does it really mean for advertisers when. . .
- The industry is seeing larger online ad units with more impact?
- Research shows at-work users spend more time online than they spend watching television?
- No one yet has defined a currency that looks and feels like traditional media?
- The ranks of thinned and the key players are not at the table from both sides?
You can access many of the presentations from the iMedia Brand Summit here.