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Here’s how advertisers can navigate their way out of the programmatic maze

June 11, 2018 No Comments

Marketers willing to undergo the complex process of taking their online ad spend in-house must prepare to unravel the complex web of contractual relationships, but potentially stand to benefit their wider operation’s financial health.

That’s the conclusion of a recent report by programmatic consultancy Labmatik which notes that the current in-house movement has been driven by a quest for improved operational efficiencies through decisions made outside of a marketing department.

“Too many programmatic marketers are suffering from unaccounted working media inefficiency, suboptimal operating models, and lack management systems to capture the purported benefits,” reads a note.

“Given the billions spent on programmatic ads, we hypothesized by asking: What do these nagging shortcomings cost the shareholders of big budget advertisers?”

In particular tier-one advertisers stand to gain from such audits, with Labmatik’s study using several big-spending advertisers such as Coca-Cola, General Motors plus Procter & Gamble as potential models for the success of such an exercise.

In a report foreword, Ari Paparo, Beeswax, chief executive officer, discusses how the wastage in the programmatic landscape is “being arbitraged out” as the market now enters “the transparency era”.

“It isn’t easy work. Driving out inefficiencies from your programmatic supply chain will probably take as much time as improving bid strategies, but both outcomes add value together,” he notes.

Tom Triscari, Labmatik, managing partner, says although the process of auditing a media supply chain is not without its pain points to ensure that their ad spend goes on actual working media, as opposed to otherwise anonymous third-parties, is a big win-win (see chart).

“Working media, for most large advertisers, is likely lower than most marketers know, have been told or want to believe,” he notes. “The second is because fixing the problem areas is easier than most marketers know, have been told or want to believe.”

The report reads: “We believe when advertisers convert their current supply chain into a unique proprietary system, they can deliver material incremental value to shareholders.”

In the study, Labmatik outlines a technique called “programmatic resource planning” as a means of better accounting for how their media budgets are allocated (see chart below).

As marketers embark on such a project, they also need to embark on a project of “programmatic cost accounting” it is also important to establish baseline measurements in order to calculate potential future savings. For this to be done successfully, it is important to decide which breakpoint to deploy and communicate to their stakeholders. These include:

Media budget
Available media budget (AMB)
Working media before arbitrage, supply and quality costs (WMBASQ)
Working media before supply and quality Costs (WMBSQ)
Working media before quality costs (WMBQ)
Fully-loaded working media (FLWM)

From here marketers should ask themselves some key questions, namely: how do I grow my spend, and how much by?

“From a pure programmatic accounting perspective, which is such an important subject matter for marketers and finance chiefs to understand together, the question becomes: Today I get some amount of reach or conversions with low working media,” says Triscari.

“If I manage to increase my working media by fixing my programmatic supply chain, I can now buy the same reach or conversions as before but with less media budget. What should I do with the cash difference? Keep spending the same as before or put the savings on the bottom line or somewhere in between?”

From here there are a number of potential operations models advertisers can choose to pursue (see chart).

After programmatic working media has been baselined, and the marketer has set a future working media goal aligned to an appropriate operating model, real cash savings can be calculated and captured. However, it is critical to note an important distinction between working media gains and real cash savings.

“For example, it is one thing to grow working media efficiency but still spend the same ad budget as before. It is another to treat the new efficiency as a way to reduce ad budget and pocket the surplus value creation,” reads the report.

The report goes on to document how advertisers can model their savings over a five-year period, and how that could potentially affect a large corporation’s bottom line.

The report contains an epilogue penned by Andrew Altersohn, AdFin, chief executive officer, it reads: “The path to improvement is through financial discipline and supply chain management.

“Marketers must now think like supply chain managers and assess the financial cost and benefits of each player, partner, tool, and technology.”

For a full free copy of Labmatik’s report click here

Feature Image: Successfully auditing a programmatic supply chain can result in tangible cost benefits for large corporations. / Pixabay

By Ronan Shields

Sourced from THEDRUM

In News

The New Age Of Digital Advertising

May 15, 2018 No Comments

By Rob Kurfehs

As of late, headlines have been trending in the advertising world that would make any Luddite proud. P&G recently made the claim that reducing its “digital” ad spending by $200 million actually resulted in greater reach. And Unilever, having steadily reduced its digital ad spending, has taken cuts a step further as an ethics statement against the duopoly of Google and Facebook.

On the surface, this is news that delivers comeuppance against the foes of the old guard. Digital was just a temporary flash in the pan, and worth cutting in favor for other channels.

Fraud, bots, viewability — oh my!

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. What is happening is a sea change in the digital advertising landscape that is long overdue. Lax analytics, murky viewability, and targeting that never delivered on its promise are all symptoms of a system that has been high in profit, but bankrupt in efficacy. In addition, increasing fake traffic and bots underscore the need for further development in the underlying technology in digital advertising.

So, when two of the largest CPG conglomerates in the world are featured in the news for cutting ineffective digital ad spending, it’s actually good for digital. It pushes ad networks to clean up their act and encourages agencies and buyers to up their rigor and demand transparency.

Viewability is one of the biggest concerns in digital, and there is some absurdity that it’s an issue that hasn’t been solved in the year 2018. Granted, some networks have been more proactive on this subject, such as Google with its Active View technology. There are varying levels of transparency on this issue, but we can and need to do better. Social doesn’t fare much better, and Facebook made headlines last year for a lack of viewability in its video ads. Advertisers deserve more transparenc

There’s more to digital

Fraud and viewability aside, brands also must think beyond display. Now more than ever, the efficacy of banner ads is being questioned. Modern digital advertising can offer engagement and precise targeting beyond the wide-swath approach. The ability to weed through promising ad tech and wasteful gimmicks will be an important role for media buyers.

Creative also needs to re-align to these opportunities. The matching luggage approach of copying and pasting a campaign across myriad units has limited efficacy. Through data and ad tech, we can and should tailor our advertising and experiences to specific audiences and platforms. Content and creative should be contextual to the place it’s being seen. An ad should feel different on Instagram vs. a display ad on Amazon. Instead of blanketing advertisements, think of what value a brand can provide to the audience: a fun game, a useful utility, or simply a good laugh. Digital has the power to make a profoundly direct connection.

A brave new world

The advancement of cognitive technologies and programmatic further underscores the need for better checks and balances. AI will not only streamline programmatic but enable tailored creative and messaging to audiences on the fly. Someday, AI-driven ads may be able to anticipate a consumer’s purchase consideration, as well as their wants, needs, and interests, serving messaging that’s one-to-one in a way we can only dream of now. But as the old adage reminds us: garbage in, garbage out. These technologies will not solve digital advertising’s problems and can only help if a strong foundation is in place.

Digital is going nowhere. We will see digital budgets continue to increase and eclipse traditional. The world continues to move toward digital, and the way we consume content is increasingly moving towards streaming and multi-device. The reality is, Unilever still spends 120% more in digital media than it did in 2012. What we’re seeing from large brands is a temporary — and much needed — protest against a flawed system that just happens to have limitless potential in the future.

By Rob Kurfehs

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

Digital Marketers Will Devote More Resources to Online Reputation Management in 2018

March 28, 2018 No Comments

Online reputation management is very necessary all of a sudden.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Businesses say they plan to allocate more resources to their online reputations in response to the growing popularity of social media and online reviews.

According to a new survey from Clutch, 40% of businesses will increase their investment in online reputation management (ORM) this year.

All this is due to the growing power of social media and third-party reviews sites, which impact businesses’ control over their online reputation.

Clutch surveyed 224 digital marketers and found that more than half of businesses (54%) consider ORM “very necessary” for success. As a result, 34% said they allocated more resources to ORM in 2018, and an additional 43% said they plan to hire a professional public relations or ORM agency in 2018.

Businesses already invest a significant amount of time observing their online reputation, Clutch found. More than 40% of digital marketers (42%) monitor their companies’ brand online daily, while 21% monitor their online reputation hourly.

According to public relations experts, businesses frequently monitor how their brand is portrayed online because they know even one negative media mention can quickly damage the public’s perception of their company.

“When people search for brands online, they tend to search for stamps of credibility,” explained Simon Wadsworth, managing partner at Igniyte, an online reputation management agency in the UK. “If potential customers find anything negative, that could end up being a significant amount of leads the business won’t get from people who are put off from using the service.”

Social media also has shifted the ORM landscape because it gives consumers free-reign to share their opinions and experiences quickly and frequently: 46% of businesses look to social media most often to monitor their online reputation.

By using professional agencies that have expertise in online reputation management, businesses can minimise losing new customers who may be dissuaded from purchasing their product or service.

To read the complete report, click here.

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In News

Getting People to Focus on your Product Will Make Them Desire It More

March 27, 2018 No Comments

Here’s why you need to get your advertising to zoom in.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The relationship between desire and attention was long thought to only work in one direction: When a person desires something, they focus their attention on it.

Now, new research reveals this relationship works the other way, too. Increasing a person’s focus on a desirable object makes them want the object even more – a finding with important implications for marketers seeking to influence behaviour.

The study, published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, is the first to demonstrate a two-way relationship.

“People will block out distraction and narrow their attention on something they want,” said Anne Kotynski, author of the study. “Now we know this works in the opposite direction, too.”

In marketing, advertisements with a hyper focus on a product’s desirable aspect – say zooming in on the texture of icing and frosting – might help sell a certain brand of cake.

Findings suggest the ad could be targeted to people who have shown an interest in a similar product, such as running the cake commercial during a baking show.

This finding also works in other areas outside advertising too. For example, doctors could potentially help their patients develop a stronger focus on healthy activities that they may desire but otherwise resist, such as exercising or eating a balanced diet.

The study’s findings also add a wrinkle to knowledge of focus and emotion. According to a spate of previous research, positive emotions, such as happiness and joy, widen a person’s attention span, while negative emotions such as disgust and fear, do the opposite: narrowing a person’s focus.

“We conceptualise fear as drastically different from desire,” Kotynski said. “But our findings contribute to growing evidence that these different emotions have something key in common: They both narrow our focus in similar ways.”

The findings also fit the notion that both of these emotions – fear (negative) and desire (positive) – are associated with evolutionarily pursuits that narrowed our ancestors’ attentions.

For example, fear of predators motivated attention focused on an escape route, while an urge to mate motivated focus on a sexual partner.

“If a person has a strong desire, research says this positive emotion would make them have a wide attention span,” Kotynski said. “Our research shows we developed a more beneficial behaviour around desire: focusing our mental energy on the important object, much like fear would.”

The study

Study participants were shown images of desserts mixed in with mundane items. They were instructed to pull a joystick toward them if the image was tilted one direction and push the stick away if it was tilted the opposite direction. Researchers recorded the reaction time of each.

Participants who responded fastest to pull the images of desserts were those whose attention had been narrowed. Responses were much slower to the mundane, and for participants whose attention was broad, suggesting narrowed attention increases desire for desserts but not for everyday objects.

The study used dessert pictures to measure reaction time because such images have been shown to increase desire across individuals, most likely due to a motivation to seek high fat, high calorie foods that is rooted in evolution.

There you go people. If people love cars and you can get them to focus on the car you are hawking, you’ll have a better chance of converting that to a sale. May the ROI forever be in your favour.

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In News

Women-Owned Small Businesses More Likely to Use Social Media

March 23, 2018 No Comments

Women-owned businesses are most likely to use social media. Men! What y’all doing?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A woman-owned small business is more likely to use social media, according to a new survey from Clutch, a leading B2B research and reviews firm.

Among women-owned businesses, 74% use social media, compared to 66% of men-owned businesses.

The findings came as no surprise to experts, who said women overall are more likely to use social media. Given that trend, female small business owners more easily can bring their business onto social media.

“Women are generally better conversationalists than men,” said Jeff Gibbard, chief social strategist at digital agency I’m From the Future. “They tend to be more expressive and more emotive. It’s no surprise to me why more women business owners use social media.”

Women often communicate better than men, which translates to the online world where they are more likely to use social media effectively.

Millennial-Owned Small Businesses Lead Social Media Use

There is also a generational divide among small businesses’ social media use. The survey finds that 79% of millennial-owned small businesses use social media compared to 65% of small businesses owned by older generations.

Millennials, like women in general, frequently use social media for their personal lives. Their social media skills easily carry over into their businesses – unlike older generations, experts say.

“The older people didn’t grow up with social media, so many don’t understand how to use it for their business,” said Shawn Alain, president of social media agency Viral in Nature. “They went through a significant part of their life without even the internet, and they remember what it was like not to have a smartphone or email.”

Millennials are also more likely to use Instagram and Snapchat than older generations, but Generation Xers and Baby Boomers are more likely to use LinkedIn.

Most Small Businesses Use Facebook

Facebook remains the most popular social media channel for small businesses, no matter the gender or generation of the owner – 86% say they use it, which is nearly twice the number of small businesses that use the second-place channel, Instagram (48%).

Among small business users of social media, 12% say they use Facebook exclusively for their social media efforts.

Overall, 71% of small businesses use social media, and more than half (52%) share content at least once per day. Images and infographics (54%) are the most popular content types that businesses post to social media.

Read the full report here.

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In News

Facebook’s Trust Crisis: What Now?

March 22, 2018 No Comments

Less than 1 in 3 people call Facebook a responsible company, according to a new survey.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Barraged by accusations of spreading divisive fake news and amid new allegations that it handed over personal information on up to 50 million users without their consent, Facebook is losing the faith of the people, according to a new survey.

Almost 4 out of 10 people surveyed said: “Facebook is not a responsible company because it puts making profits most of the time ahead of trying to do the right thing.” Less than 1 in 3 said that Facebook is a “responsible company because it tries to do the right thing most of the time even if that gets in the way of it making profits.” The rest were unsure.

By a 7-1 ratio people surveyed said that Facebook has had a negative influence on political discourse. Sixty-one percent said that “Facebook has damaged American politics and made it more negative by enabling manipulation and falsehoods that polarize people.”

The survey was conducted as new revelations surfaced that the company connected to the 2016 Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica, inappropriately harvested personal information on millions of Facebook users.

The sharp rise in negative feelings is a significant departure from Facebook’s standing prior to the 2016 election, when the rise of so-called Fake News and polarizing content led to calls for the company to take greater responsibility for the content on the popular social media site – or face government regulation.

By a 2-1 margin, people surveyed said it’s Facebook’s responsibility to remove or warn about posts that contain false or misleading information. And 59 percent reported that the company is not doing enough to address the issues of false and inflammatory information that appear on its site.

“Facebook is at a crossroads because of its inability – nearly a year-and-a-half after the election – to get a handle on its divisive effects on society,” said Tom Galvin, Executive Director of Digital Citizens, who commissioned the survey. “From spreading fake and manipulative information to becoming a ‘Dark Web-like’ place for illicit commerce, Facebook seems to losing the trust of the American public. Regulation will not be far behind for social media companies if things don’t change.”

This declining trust reflects a growing concern about the impact Facebook and other social media sites have on young teens. In the survey, more than two in five people surveyed said that the minimum age to have a Facebook account should be at least 18 years old.

“Digital platforms have to rise to the occasion and assure internet users that their personal information will be safe, that the content will be legal, safe and not contrived to manipulate. In short, they have to demonstrate they will be the positive influence on our society that they espouse to be,” said Galvin.

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How to Win at Marketing Using a Hashtag

March 21, 2018 No Comments

A travel company has managed to stir up a lot of viral traffic with their hashtag. Watch and learn, people.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

What do a dream wedding in New York, an adventure through the mountains of Sri Lanka and a family’s search for their roots in Scotland all have in common? All saw a hospitality professional going out of their way to make or save someone’s trip. And a holiday booking company use this mushy sequence of events with a hashtag to fire up social media views and get a great repsonse from them.

Booking.com call themselves the global leader in connecting travellers with the widest choice of incredible places to stay. Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com B.V. has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest travel e-commerce companies in the world. Part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com now employs more than 17,000 employees in 198 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

So, what are they doing with their social media marketing? They are riding hastags like a showjumper would a prize horse.

They have had some great success with their recent hashtag #BookingHero. They asked people to share their travel stories using the hashtag. The best story won travel prizes and big kudos online.

Following thousands of submissions via social media, Booking.com selected the three most touching and inspiring accounts of hospitality professionals going above and beyond to create unique and unforgettable travel experiences for their guests.

The customers were then flown back to say thank you to the person who saved their trips. Here are the stories.

The point isn’t the stories though. The point is that real people’s journeys made the hashtag come alive and generate traffic for booking.com. In fact, the call out for submissions via social media has been so successsful that Booking.com is now using the hashtag to extend the social media campaign with long-form video content that extends the #BookingHero message, with TV to follow.

According to recent research conducted by Booking.com across 25 markets in 2017, a personal connection is essential for many travellers with 29% saying that an accommodation feeling like home is key and 24% sharing that a welcoming host is a make or break factor during the first 24 hours of their trip.

Said Pepijn Rijvers, Chief Marketing Officer, Booking.com. “These stories beautifully demonstrate that an amazing trip is about more than simply finding the right destination or the perfect accommodation– it’s also about the people you meet along the way which truly make for an unforgettable journey. And that’s what travel is all about.”

And for the company, it is about finding the right hashtag and getting it to go viral.

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Uh-Oh. How Do We Mobile-Advertise to Gen-Z When They Don’t Like Their Phones That Much?

March 20, 2018 No Comments

Gen Z use their phones a lot, but are relieved when they are taken away. So how do marketers reach this age group if they have a love/hate relationship with their smartphones?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Members of Generation Z are relieved when placed in a situation where they are unable to access their smartphones for several weeks. This is according to a new study conducted by Screen Education, a non-profit organisation that addresses smartphone addiction.

The study involved participants aged from 12 to 16, who spent 2-4 weeks at Camp Livingston during the summer of 2017. Because Camp Livingston does not permit its campers to bring smartphones with them, they are an ideal group for conducting research about refraining from smartphone use.

According to Michael Mercier, President of Screen Education, “Many children said they have become overwhelmed by their smartphones. They no longer can keep up with all their notifications, and they are burdened by the ‘drama’ they encounter through social media via their smartphones. Consequently, they were relieved to be separated from their smartphones because it eliminated that stress.”

This relief was reflected in a survey conducted with the campers after they had returned home. The campers were asked the extent to which they experienced feelings of gladness and frustration from being without their phones. “A large number − 92% − experienced gladness, while only 41% felt any frustration. We had expected the opposite,” said Mercier.

When asked what their experience would have been like if they had been allowed to bring their phones to camp, campers revealed just how severe smartphone addiction is among their age group. “They almost unanimously admitted they would have spent the entire time on their phones,” recounts Max Yamson, Executive Director of Camp Livingston. “They said they would not have formed deep relationships with the staff and fellow campers, would not have connected with their surroundings and nature on the same level, and would not have engaged as much in recreational activities.”

According to Yamson, “The study shows that the campers were glad to have left their phones behind so that they could experience a deeper level of engagement.”

“The research also revealed a stunning insight,” said Mercier. “Many campers discussed the experience of face-to-face communication as though it were a novel one. They exhibited a sense of discovery at learning that face-to-face communication is far superior to screen communication when it comes to building friendships and getting to know other people.”

Yamson added, “One camper said that in four short weeks she got to know her friends at camp better than she knows some of her friends at home – because she mostly communicates with her friends at home through screens.”

Other key findings include:

92% said it was beneficial to have gone without their phones while at camp
83% considered having gone without their phones for several weeks to be an important life experience
35% were successful at curbing their smartphone use after leaving camp
17% tried to influence a friend to spend less time on their phone after leaving camp

The researchers plan to follow this study up with additional research during the summer of 2018.

Marketers trying to catch the attention of this demographic may need to think carefully about how they approach mobile advertising for this generation of digital natives. It’s another day in the life of modern media.

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In News

A New App Can Create Facebook Ads Without the Cost

March 16, 2018 No Comments

This handy app can help you create ads with impact but with very little effort.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An app called Plotaverse helps marketers to create great ads without the dreaded and costly content creation process. Quickly bypassing established app giants, the young startup’s iOS app made the list of Facebook’s top 10 mobile apps.

The photo app’s animation features allow businesses of any calibre to create impactful ads fast and on a budget. More or less, you can choose from many artistically appealling gifs and put your message over them. The artwork on the site is truly eye-catching.

But how did Plotaverse’s 8 months old mobile app manage to disrupt visual advertising, going up against 8 billion video views a day on Facebook alone?

Images animated with Plotaverse, formerly known as Plotagraph, are the key to its success. The app ads movement to any single still photo. This creates ads that stand out in saturated media feeds.

Brands like Coca Cola, Wella, Chevrolet and Red Bull were seen boosting their brand with captivating Plotagraphs. There is no need for video, multiple photos or video editing skills to turn a photograph into a Plotagraph. Users of any skill level can quickly animate and post uniquely moving images to their business and social page.

On Instagram and Facebook, Plotagraphs have proven to attract up to 5 times the amount of views and engagement than surrounding images.

Every day, 4.5 million business pages on Facebook are trying to cut through 1.32 billion daily active users according to WordStream. As expected, Adobe’s titan apps, Photoshop Express and Spark Post head Facebook’s list of Photo Enhancing apps. But the tiny startup’s photo animation app has unexpectedly spearheaded the looping content industry.

To check it out, click here

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Using Models in Your Advertising Campaign? Be Careful With Their Make-Up

March 13, 2018 No Comments

It could be sending the wrong message to your intended audience.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An academic study has found that women wearing heavy makeup are less likely to be perceived as leaders. Of course, it depends on what you are selling and to whom. But if you want your model to portray leadership, then stay away from the make-up kit.

The research from Abertay University found that women wearing heavy makeup were less likely to be thought of as good leaders. The study was led by Dr Christopher Watkins of Abertay’s Division of Psychology, and published today in Perception journal. It revealed that the amount of makeup a woman is wearing can have a negative impact on perceptions of her leadership ability.

Study participants were asked to view a series of images featuring the same woman without cosmetics and with makeup applied for a “social night out”.

Computer software was used to manipulate the faces and the amount of makeup was also manipulated in the face images.

Each participant completed a face perception task where they judged sixteen face-pairs, indicating how much better a leader they felt their chosen face to be compared to the other face.

It was found that both men and women evaluated women more negatively as a leader if the image suggested she was wearing a lot of makeup.

Dr Watkins said, “This research follows previous work in this area, which suggests that wearing makeup enhances how dominant a woman looks. While the previous findings suggest that we are inclined to show some deference to a woman with a good looking face, our new research suggests that makeup does not enhance a woman’s dominance by benefitting how we evaluate her in a leadership role.”

The study was carried out by Abertay graduates Esther James and Shauny Jenkins and used a measurement scale common in face perception research, which calculates the first-impressions of the participant group as a whole, working out an average verdict.

Dr Watkins has carried out previous high-profile studies including work looking at how women remember the faces potential love rivals and the role of traits related to dominance in our choice of allies, colleagues and friends.

To view the full study click here.

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