winning on media metrics

INTRODUCTION

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS & EFFICIENCY OF MARKETERS& THEIR AGENCIES

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WHATWHOHOW

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ome years ago, business guru Tom Peters was credited with penning the term what gets measured gets improved and in a market where we are all constantly looking forward - never having enough time to look back and learn it is critical

that marketers put a few key media metrics in place to measure and improve year-on-year media performance. After all, if you are not accurately measuring what you are doing - and we see an amazing number of top name clients who are not - then you cannot know if you are achieving what you set out to achieve and you cannot know if you are improving.

This White Paper aims to address three basic areas

definitions and details of the metrics used in offline and online media

case studies and best practice in measuring campaigns

practical recommendations on how to apply metrics to your marketing

EXECUTIVESUMMARY


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With the ever growing popularity and sophistication of the Internet, consumers have become empowered with more information and the ability to share it. Additionally, advancements in technology such as DVR have given con-sumers more control over their media consumption and the ability to block or skip over ad messages targeted to them. With the benefit of 15 years of experience with Internet marketing, industry stakeholders are seeking proper attribution and optimization of both offline and online marketing spend.

To thrive and survive, marketers must constantly stretch their marketing dollars further, while grasping how to best allocate and optimize their budgets across multiple vehicles. Industry standard metrics for measuring emerging media platforms like social and mobile are still in gestation, further complicating proceedings.

As advertisings tangible impact on revenue and prot has become more complicated, attribution modelling is essential. Case in point: We see TV commercials, prompting us to research the product online, where search or display ads may garner our attention with more information. This activity often results in a purchase online or instore. How do you measure the effect of the TV commercial versus the search ad? How do you know if customers purchase something in a store because they saw a search ad online?

DETAILEDFINDINGS

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS& EFFICIENCY OF MARKETERS& THEIR AGENCIES

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Agencies often argue that you can chose any two out of the three; for example, a focus on low cost can only be achieved by sacrificing quality, whilst delivering a responsive front-line client service team often means cutting back on heavy-hitter negotiators or seasoned tactical planners.

But from where we sit, we regularly see huge increases in year-on-year ROI among those of our clients who have set clear, measurable and realistic media goals in close partnership with their agencies, especially in their buying performance but with no compromise on quality and service metrics, echoing the wise business principle that what gets measured gets improved.

Media metrics fall into three interconnected areas: Cost, Service and Quality.

INTRODUCTION

Cost

Service

Quality

1 Set 3-5 key metrics; dont try to measure everything. Decide which are the real measures that will contribute to your brands success, e.g. where marketing department staffing is under pressure, agency service may be a top priority.

2 Keep it simple. Metrics should be easily available as part of your on-going activities, e.g. to minimize the time the agency needs, try setting up planning analysis and post buy formats upfront so top line data can simply be dropped into regular metric reporting.

Making sense of the overall scenario once or twice a year, having data analysis and substantiated course corrections discussions and measures might prove to be more effective than having numerous small discussions about how numbers move up and down.

3 Ensure key metrics form part of the agency's remuneration. Money talks and this is the most powerful way to ensure metrics are fully embraced by the agency. Set clear incentives for year-on-year improvements.

4 Set clear and agreed baseline metrics for the current year and work closely with the agency in setting targets that are realistic and really stretch the agency but are also achievable. Give the agency the space and time to achieve goals and targets, e.g. booking and negotiation lead times.

5 Take advantage of external benchmarking and impartial objectivity.

TOP 5 TIPS FOR SETTING EFFECTIVE MEDIA METRICS:

Each client faces a different marketing and media challenge so there is no simple formula to adopt. Here we summarize some of the key metrics we have benchmarked over the last year:

WHAT TO MEASURE?

COST BASED METRICS APPLY EQUALLY TO ALL MEDIA

Metric What does it measure Value

Year-on-year cost increases/decreases

Year-on-year change in real prices

Actual $ costs paid vs last year

Costs vs external benchmark

Costs vs market rate

Costs vs internal agency benchmark

Savings vs rate card

Costs vs inflation

Most accurate benchmark Critical to establish cost unit, e.g. CPRP or % discount

Can only measure like for like media

Similar approach to market rate. Compares year-on-year actual costs vs theoretical inflation rate

Compares costs paid to third party data pool

Actual costs paid vs agency estimate of average costs paid by other advertisers

Compares actual costs to average rates paid by agency

Rates paid vs rate card cost

Valuable indicative cost base

Pool relatively small but growing fast

Agency favourite but almost impossi-ble to verify

Can give a useful general perspective

Baseline inflation usually taken from media vendor rate card changes or CCTV annual action results

Useful but impossible to quantify

Valuable benchmark but agencies are very reluctant to share internal data

Agency rates need to be verified by a third party

Limited value - nobody pays rate card


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QUALITY BASED METRICS GREATER FOCUS SHOULD BE ON STRATEGIC EFFECTIVENESS (I.E. CONSUMER RESPONSES, WHICH CAN POTENTIALLYLINK TO SALES OR OTHER DESIRED OUTPUTS, ETC.), BUT CAN ALSO BE ON MEASURING QUALITY OF TV TACTICAL PLANNING AND SCHEDULING, PRINT TITLE SELECTION AND POSITIONING, QUALITY OF RADIO SPOTS, CINEMA AND OOH POSITIONS.


Campaign effectiveness

TV spot verification

GRP, Reach and Frequency verification

TV peak %

Position in break

Campaign strike rates

Consumer responses provide valuable indications if a brand promotion or message is well-receivedPotential linkage to key business outcomes (e.g. sales, loyalty, etc.)

Measures number of campaigns achieving planned weight of GRPs, Reach and Frequency

Benchmarks % of actual GRPs appearing in pre-determined prime time segment

Sets basic spot accuracy level vs benchmarkEnsures missed spots are accurately compensated

Sets accuracy level vs benchmark

Measures consistency of tactical planning and scheduling across brand portfolio

Indicates broad quality of scheduleEnsures reach and frequency objec-tives are met

Subjective measure of audience attentionMeasured against benchmark This concept can also be applied to print positioning

Agreed upfront consumer responses metrics in stipulated timeframe (e.g. 1 million video views on demand in 3 weeks, 10,000 participants, 1000 sign ups, etc.)

Spot matching scheduled vs actual on air spotsCaptures spots appearing as planned vs missing or out of zone spots. Also captures bonus spots

Benchmarks planned vs actual GRPs, Reach and Frequency (see definitions in Glossary)

Benchmarks % of GRPs or spots (usually prime time) that appear in predetermined position in each ad break

Programme selection Broad quality metric measuring use of hot programmingEnsures reach goals achievedCan be applied to non-TV media

% of GRPs delivered in top rating programmesUsually Top 10 highest rating shows used as benchmark

It was a tough ask to get a small town Indian homemaker, who is a shrewd money manager, to buy Tide and pay nearly double for her laundry detergent. It was found that 70% of laundry consumers in India buy cheaper Tier 3 brands such as Wheel, Ghadi and Nirma. Tide operates in the mid-price segment, along with Unilevers detergent Rin. The challenge for the agency was to come up with an idea that will grow Tide by uptiering Tier 3 brand consum-ers.

After spending time with these homemakers, they discovered that their current detergent could not clean collar dirt so mothers came up with smart solutions to prevent it from getting dirty. They uncovered the insight of the neck-kerchief which these women tied around their husbands/sons collars and made it a symbol of wrong detergent choice, thus making these women realise that buying Tide was a smarter solution to the problem.

CASE STUDY

TIDE COLLARS INDIA:

MEDIA METRICS AND RESULTS :

Penetrated into 1.49 million India households between Jan July 2011 (Compared to 497,000 for Rin, 20,900 for Tier 3 brands).

61.8% of Tides volume growth came from Tier 3 brands.

Reached a historic high of 17.9% value share in June 2011; an urban market leader since then.

3rd largest laundry brand, after Ghadi and Wheel (Tier 3 brands) achieved within 11 years and surpassing similarly priced Surf Excel and Rin which have been in India for over 30 years.

37% consumers believe Tide offers the right balance between benefits and cost, a perception surpassing all above-mentioned brands.


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SERVICE BASED METRICS QUALITATIVE MEASURES WHICH SHOULD BE TAILORED TO INDIVIDUAL CLIENT NEEDS AND INTERNAL RESOURCES. HERE WE HIGHLIGHT JUST A FEW EXAMPLES THAT CAN BE FURTHER BROKEN DOWN TO MATCH CLIENT NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS.


Involvement of senior agency management

Stability of agency team

Sharing of global/regional learnings/resources

Quality of ideas/thinking

Communications leadership

Delivery of agreed scope of work

Ensures the service quality (e.g. resourcing and quality of staff) and product (i.e. buying costs, ideas, etc.) are maintained to a reasonable standard

Measures core competencies of the agency Ensures contracted services delivered to agreed standards

Balances agency buying and execution with qualitative judgement on effective-ness of ideas and planning creativity

Measures continuity and knowledge capture

Reinforces the core value of cross border knowledge sharing and consistency in product and service of the multi-national agency

Right price for the right value as agreed upfront in the SOW

Makes the client's investment go further to achieve better ROI

Measures value of agency contribution beyond standard media planning and buying and their ability to contribute to overall communication success

Visibility and contribution of senior agency management in agencys product and service delivery to the client (e.g., heads of agencys market insights and lead in buying/negotiation)

Staffing headcount and stability vs industry benchmark dataStability of client servicing team

Sharing and embedding best practice import and export of good ideas and processes

Agency contribution to overall communications development process

Cross referencing and matching of data metrics

Creates understanding of correlation, causal and effects from costs to consumer responses

Creation of data dashboards, cross charts and meaningful analysis of data

Timeliness and accuracy of work flow

Minimizes rework and errors, allows greater focus on value creation

Benchmarks adherence to workflow best practiceBenchmarks billing and accounting accuracy and issue resolution

Marketers need to keep in mind that although they must invest time in honing the creative & messaging pieces of their communication, ultimately, media and channel distribution is the largest investment they make, and it demands the same degree, if not more, of rigor. The ones that understand this are already the ones driving real benefits and growth.

GLOSSARYMeasure

Definition

Total GRPs

Gross Rating Points. 1 x GRP means we reach 1% of our target audience. Total GRP's is the sum of all the ratings in a specific campaign e.g. 400 GRP's.

Calculated by Research agency directly from audience data e.g. People Meters. (Quick formula: Reach x Frequency = GRP's).

GRP's is representative of specific target audiences. Total GRPs should only be added on the same target audiences.Notes

Calculation

% Primetime GRP'sMeasure

Definition% of total GRP's delivered in Prime-time segment. Actual time segment defined separately for each market e.g. 18.00 - 23.00

GRP's delivered in primetime as % of total GRP's. For each brand - shown monthly and YTD. For Total market = absolute GRP is calculated per brand and then a total market percentage is calculated, so as to avoid averaging percentages.

Gives an indication of top line quality for each campaign and overall. Prime time spots/CPRP is higher than non prime time so need a trade off between higher % prime time and higher CPRP.

Notes

Calculation

Average RatingMeasure

DefinitionAverage rating value for each spot.

For each campaign Total number of GRPs / total number of spots e.g. 100 spots delivers 400 GRP's = ave.. rating of each spot is 4. Data shown for each month and average for all brands.

Gives a further indication of 'quality' e.g. the higher the average rating means fewer but high rating spots bought - implying 'better quality' airtime. Includes all bonus spots which could push average rating down.

Notes

Calculation


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Measure

Definition

% GRPs PIB

% of GRPs delivered in the first two or last two positions in a given ad break.

GRP's delivered F2/L2 as a % of Total GRP's. Agency software will calcu-late each spot's position in break and calculate the spot's rating. Data shown for each brand and average for all brands.

Final indication of quality. Implication - spots appearing close to start/end of programmes could have 'higher quality value'.

Notes

Calculation

ReachMeasure

DefinitionNumber of different individuals exposed to ads in a media schedule. Expressed as a % of a specific target audience, e.g. 70% reach of Women 35+.

Extracted by the agency using audience research data. Usually expressed as a % of total universe potentials.

Sum of the total unique individuals for a specified period. Notes

Calculation

1+ Reach, 3+ Reach, 5+ReachMeasure

Definition1+ Reach is the % of our target who have seen the ad at least 1 or more e.g. 70% 1+ reach = 70% have seen ad at least once - but 30% have not seen any ads.50% 5+ Reach = 50% of target have seen the ad at least 5x

Extracted directly from audience research data.

Higher reach and higher frequency need higher budgets. A trade off between affordable levels of reach and frequency is usually required.

Notes

Calculation

Frequency; Average FrequencyMeasure

DefinitionFrequency is the number of times that the target sees the ads. Usually, different people see the same ads a different number of times, therefore Average Frequency is used to gauge on average how many times the ads are seen.

Calculated directly from audience research data.

As above.Notes

Calculation

The arrival of online media in the late 1990's introduced a whole new set of measur-able data; now marketers could track media delivery and media performance in realtime, rather than relying on econometric predictions and post campaign analysis. Initially, the smaller screen and ad formats positioned Internet marketing as a direct response only medium, not equipped for brand building. Over a decade later, the breadth and depth of online measurement metrics has skyrocketed to where 'analysis by paralysis' and 'data overload' have become common problems for marketers. We believe in a 'less is more' approach to digital media measurement, creating a basket of KPI that provide a clear picture of performance with actionable learnings.

When thinking about digital metrics, keep these 5 tactics in mind:

1 Always take your search marketing ROI with a pinch of salt: Google frequently benefits from the aggregated impact of your total marketing investments. Attribution modeling is essential in assigning accurate credit to each 'lever' on your media plan.

2 Clicks and conversions have nothing in common. Focus on engagement, specifically creative interaction (cursor hover time and ad unit manipulation) plus 'strength of intent' indicators like personal information submission and social signals.

3 Avoid counting your chickens before they are hatched; visualize raw data to avoid reading between the wrong lines. Plenty of analyt-ics suites help facilitate this critical step. When analyzing subjective concepts like user behaviors or future trends, mathematics can misdirect you from the real drivers or focusing on customer acquisi-tion at the expense of customer attrition. Using averages instead of finding the median will also get you in trouble (a few outliers can skew a trends true profile).

4 Consider investing in a data management platform. A DMP is the backbone of data-driven marketing and a unifying platform to collect unstructured audience data across mobile, web analytic tools, CRM, Point Of Sale, social, online video and available offline data sources.

5 Advertising is a cost of doing business, not an end unto itself or a ticket to Cannes. Ensure success metrics are aligned to tangible business objectives whenever possible. With the right ROI measure-ment framework in place, there is no reason why digital media investment cannot be a profit center.

DIGITAL MEASUREMENT

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB.) has created a working group, Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS), to streamline digital media measurement. It has five guiding principles designed to enhance digital media planning, assessment and comparison, namely:

INDUSTRY EFFORTS TO IMPROVE DIGITAL METRICS

Today we count served impressions as recorded by ad servers. Often, ad units are not in a space viewable to the end-user or fail to fully load on the screen potentially resulting in substantial over-counting of impressions. Viewable exposures are increasingly the norm across other media and better address the needs of brand marketers.

Principle 1 : Move to a viewable impressions standard and count real exposures online.

Brand marketers target specific audiences. Marketers need to understand the quality and number of exposures against their targets and the respective reach and frequency of such exposures. The existing digital currency makes this extremely difficult. Moreover, the practice of selling ad impressions makes cross-media comparisons challenging, if not impossible.

Principle 2 : Online advertising must migrate to a currency based on audience impressions, not gross ad impressions.

Unlike traditional media, which have a limited number of inventory types (e.g. 30-sec spot, full-page back cover), digital has a myriad of units. Making Measure-ment Make Sense advocates a transparent classifica-tion system, adhered to by all publishers. Such a system will enable marketers to identify and spotlight the best offerings for brand building, and for other marketing objectives.

Principle 3 : Because all ad units are not created equal, we must create a transparent classification system.

Currently, the industry is awash in digital interaction metrics. However, these metrics are not necessarily relevant for brand marketers. Aside from clicks, there are few standards for enabling reliable comparison across sites. The industry must identify and define the specific metrics most valuable to brand marketers and define and implement reliable standards for existing metrics.

Principle 4 : Determine interactivity metrics that matter for brand marketers, so that marketers can better evaluate onlines contribution to brand building.

Measurement solutions must facilitate cross media platform planning, buying and evaluating of marketing and media. This is a substantial issue that hampers analysis and decision making throughout the ecosys-tem.

Principle 5 : Digital media measurement must become increasingly comparable and integrated with other media.


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CORE MEDIA METRICS BY DIGITAL PLATFORM/CHANNEL

GENERAL DISPLAY MEDIA - BANNER, SEARCH

AD IMPRESSIONSPotential reach and delivery of campaign

Universal yardstick much like GRP's

CLICK THROUGH/CLICK RATE Ad response and delivery of campaign

More important for CPC search campaigns, causal relationship to post click conversion discred-ited

SHARE OF VOICEProportion of available ad impres-sions delivered by advertiser versus other advertisers

Higher 'SOV' carries a premium but excludes competitive set and reduces clutter

HOVER TIMETypical duration someone keeps mouse on a display ad in single user session

Strong indicator of user engage-ment with ad unit

AD UNIT INTERACTIONSTracks user initiated interaction with ad unit functionality

Highly effective indicator of user engagement with ad unit

VIEW THROUGHVia cookies, tracks users who are exposed to ad unit without clicking

Studies indicate this metric is more accurate at predicting conversions than click through's

BOUNCE RATEPercentage of click through's that reach a land page without visiting a second page

Indicates how effective landing page environment meets visitors' expectations

SESSION TIMETypical length in minutes of site visitors

Length of session time indicates objective measure of site visitor engagement levels

PAGES PER VISITNumber of pages visited per user session

Objective measure of site visitor engagement level


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SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS

LIKES AND FOLLOWSYour company and its branded content popularity

Universal metric with limited insight into engagement

SHARING AND FORWARDINGYour branded content is passed on and your online brand persona attracts active acolytes

Most credible engagement measure, indicates unquestion-able followship

PUBLICLY POSTED COMMENTSA subjective yardstick for user sentiment towards your brand. The 'sturm und drang' of social media

Using a proper marketing automation platform for analysis, this is the richest source of game changing social signals

HASHTAG REFERENCES The # has become social media's universal sharing signal, with Instagram and now Facebook joining the fray

When you're included in a hashtag, it signifies you are deserving of wider consideration within a social network

VIDEO METRICS

COMPLETION RATEPercentage of video ads that play through to end

Universal metric easily bench-marked, not a comprehensive indicator of video ad efficacy

SHIFT IN BRAND AWARENESSOnline survey tracks pre- and post- video view brand attitudes

Results not entirely reliable, open to skew from recency, incentive for positive response

PLAY RATEHow often your video was initiated by a user

Basic hygiene check, similar to ad impression tracking

RESUME OR REWINDIndicates active user engage-ment in flow of video play

Indicates engagement without providing any holistic insight into user behaviour

VIDEO PAUSEIndicates the ad was intentionally stopped mid-play when the user clicks or otherwise activates a Pause control

Signifies engagement without providing any holistic insight into user behaviour

PLAYTHROUGH RATEWhat proportion of your video was viewed, normally segmented in 25%-50%-75%-100% increments

Most important video engagement rate indicator

AUDIO MUTE/UNMUTEIndicates when a user clicks or otherwise activates the mute control

Should not be considered an accurate standalone metric for engagement

CLOSE VIDEO PLAYERIndicates that the user clicks or otherwise activates a control to minimize the ad

Should there be statistically relevant data pointing to an inflection point, this can guide video creative optimization

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS& EFFICIENCY OF MARKETERS& THEIR AGENCIES

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With 40% of hotel rooms in China always unoccupied, competition is fierce. Desperate hotel brands have resorted to a downward spiral of endless promotions to improve occupancy rates. Holiday Inn knew that it had to appeal on more than just the basis of price to secure its future in China. So they decided to create a series of short videos (Curious Holiday Inn-cidents) to be played on office elevators, taxi screens and social media. The first videos cut off before the denouement, forcing the viewer to search for the second video to see what happened.The client and agency invested time in setting the right metrics in advance:

Increased unaided brand awareness by 15% by the end of 2011

Increased brand preference by 10% by the end of 2011

Increased Holiday Inn hotel revenue by 10% by the end of 2011

CASE STUDY IHG CHINA RESULTS:

9 million consumers interacted with Curious Holiday Inn-cident content online

5 million went on to search for the remaining parts of the videos

2 million clicked through the videos to find out more about the brand

Increase in unaided brand awareness 23%

Increase brand preference 22%

16% increase in revenue in 2011, compared to 2010

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The challenge for Tiger Blue Xmas was to engage with young adults and increase sales volume by the end of 2011. This was made more difficult as prime media spaces were blocked out by high spending competitors. The insights they had into the target audience were that they are always in search of cool new experi-ences and excitement. As such, Tiger Blue Xmas delivered an unconventional Christmas experience to them. The campaign included a host of cool and exciting experiential events, activa-

tions and a spectacular Christmas rock concert on water. Media Metrics were clearly aligned in advance, and allowed clarity on goal delivery.

TIGER BLUE CHRISTMAS VIETNAM:

RESULTS:

Achieved 208% of sales target

400,000 clicks on digital platforms 33% more than target of 300,000

Increased brand health index by 10%

More than 150,000 attendees at main event

More than US$100,000 of PR value from media coverage, forums and blogs

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winning on media metrics

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