This Managing Director explains why day-parting should be considered for some clients, and why measurements should stay consistent with offline.

As Managing Director of Tribal DDB, Chicago, Paul Gunning oversees all day-to-day operations. He has managed the McDonald’s and Quaker Oats accounts at Tribal, as well as accounts for Sears, Roebuck & Co., Microsoft and Kodak while at Frankel & Co. previously. In addition, he served as the Business Development Director for Frankel’s technology division, Siren Technologies. We talked with Gunning recently about the state of the industry.

iMedia Connection: What’s one of the most successful campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?

Gunning: We executed a campaign for McDonald’s this summer for the release of a new product called Chicken Flatbread. We tied the campaign to a study by the IAB/Rex Briggs, so we received very in-depth knowledge about the campaign in terms of efficacy. But more important, we learned how the campaign functioned in relationship with offline media. The results (www.iab.net) were extremely impressive. They exceeded the expectations of the digital folks and my guess is they undoubtedly exceeded the expectations of the offline folks as well.

iMedia Connection: Can your company point to evidence that suggests online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?

Gunning: A huge number of the questions asked in the above-mentioned study as well as in other work we do specifically addresses branding metrics. Most of our clients do not have a direct-response model as part of their online advertising – in fact only two of 16 of our clients do direct response marketing, the other 14’s online efforts are purely for branding reasons. So we tend to use Dynamic Logic and its Ad Index to measure online impact, brand awareness, message association, purchase intent and so on.

iMedia Connection: And the results of these studies?

Gunning: Positive. Some campaigns do better than others, and when we look at them objectively, we see those which have a more targeted media plan and good solid creative always outperform the more obtuse campaigns that are generalized and not very dynamic in creative. I know that’s a rather simplistic view, but it matches some offline fundamentals -- properly practiced creative and media placement will drive metrics.

iMedia Connection: In this post click-through era, what kinds of new metrics are emerging as the new measurement standards?

Gunning: Standard brand metrics such as brand awareness (aided and unaided), message association, purchase intent, brand attributes, these aren’t new but they’re what we’re using. I’m not so sure we should come up with something new or something different than what’s being used offline. If we can use the same vocabulary and the same measurement pieces as in the offline world, it will help our cause. After all, it’s the same consumer. We don’t want to create something that’s online only because that will further distance us from offline, and the goal is to bring online and offline together seamlessly and strategically.

iMedia Connection: How does the issue of relationship marketing tie into the future of online marketing?

Gunning: It’s obviously going to be important when there is a relationship to be made. There are some companies or products for which marketers assume there can be in-depth relationships with consumers when that’s just not realistic -- some products, like shoelaces for example, just don’t need one. So we start by asking if there needs to be a relationship, first of all. For those products for which a relationship with the consumer makes sense, there’s tremendous benefit in e-mail -- speed, efficacy, the fact that you can actually receive input back from consumers, etc.

iMedia Connection: Will day-parting become known as one of the Internet’s best practices, or is this perhaps more hype, than hope?

Gunning: It’s already a practice here. We’ve embraced it wholeheartedly. For some of our clients, it’s central to their strategy. There’s no other media channel that can reach such a large number of adults during the 10:00 am to 2:00 pm hours, so it makes a lot of sense for clients with products that fit into the lunchtime hour, and for B2B clients. It’s a primary tool to reach the C-level audience, so we’re doing a lot of that now for customers. It’s the same principle as drive time for radio and primetime for TV.

iMedia Connection: If the industry chooses to regulate itself, who should be responsible and what sort of guidelines should be implemented?

Gunning: It’s going to have to be one of our premiere associations like the OPA or IAB. Should it be regulated? It should be standardized, everybody agrees about that but we can’t agree on who should do it or in what fashion. The goal, again, is to make things easier, move us closer to a seamless relationship with offline.

iMedia Connection: Are you recommending Gator and its technology to your clients, or is there a certain amount of angst?

Gunning: At this time no, we’re not recommending Gator, but it’s not because we have anything against the company.

iMedia Connection: Are your clients increasing their interactive spend over time? What does 2003 look like relative to 2002?

Gunning: Absolutely. We are in a better position going into next year than in the last two years. We have more clients than ever before, and budgets have increased unilaterally. Only two clients’ budgets will dip; every other one will have a material up tick. We’re hiring, we’re growing and it’s about time. It has been a rough couple of years, but we’re definitely seeing an up tick. And that’s been happening for several months so it’s a trend, not a fluke.

iMedia Connection: What remains the industry’s biggest stumbling block?

Gunning: It’s getting the non-digital marketing communications community to not just hear us about online efficacy, but embrace it and integrate it. We’re making strides, that’s why we’re growing. Our clients haven’t come to us because the CPMs are cheap; they’re coming because of the work we did in 2002 to prove efficacy. Our effort proving online’s impact and industry studies delivering positive results have our clients spending in this space next year. This trend needs to continue with studies and education. It has to be founded in data – in research and, ultimately, in product sales.

iMedia Connection: What knowledge can you share to bridge the gap on how to better serve marketers’ needs in the online world?

Gunning: One of the keys is the day-part issue we talked about earlier. This is a sweeping generalization, but with the brands we work with, the ones where it was proper to target the day-part audience, we see results that are head and shoulders above the others, and the others are good. It’s such a sweet spot that’s untapped for certain brands. If that’s your target, you’re crazy not to look at it.