REVISTA DA ABA – ANO XII – JUN/JUL 2009 – Nº CENTO E QUATORZE
Af-RA 114:MONTAGEM NOVA RA 7/2/09 7:10 PM Page 1
REVISTA DA ABA
AS MÚLTIPLAS POSSIBILIDADES E CAMINHOS DAS MÍDIAS —
ABA 50 ANOS
CAPÍTULO DO RIO DE JANEIRO AMPLIFICA FORÇA DA ENTIDADE
ROI: (r)evolution in advertising?
IN THIS ARTICLE, DAVID EASTMAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF POINTLOGIC, REVEALS NEW VISIONS FOR ROI IN COMMUNICATIONS, DETAILING THE CONCEPTS ADOPTED BY THIS MULTINATIONAL COMPANY, OFFERING SOLUTIONS OF THIS TYPE IN 65 COUNTRIES. ONE OF THE CONCERNS IS THAT ALL OF THE VARIABLES BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT TO DELIVER A TRUE MONEY‐IN‐MONEY‐OUT RETURN, WHICH IS THE REAL MEASURE OF ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS. BY DAVID EASTMAN
THE SINGLE LARGEST CONTRIBUTION MARKETING PROFESSIONALS CAN MAKE TO DRAMATICALLY INCREASE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THEIR MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS IS TO ADOPT A CONSUMER CENTRIC APPROACH TO COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING THAT MERGES MEDIA AND CREATIVE With agency, advertiser, and media owner clients in 65 countries around the world, Pointlogic has a unique opportunity to see global trends in the advertising industry unfolding and to create mechanisms to elevate the
effectiveness of marketing communications.
In these uncertain economic times, not surprisingly, the predominant trend has been to move ever closer to an advertising model based on the return on investment (ROI) of ad campaigns. Agencies are being evaluated (and even paid!) based on their ability to deliver increased market share (sales) through their marketing activities. There are many ideas about what exactly constitutes ROI.
In practical terms, the ROI of a political campaign is measurable through the results of electoral research and/or votes, while the ROI of a campaign to sell goods or services is typically measured in terms of sales volume. In the context of this article, ROI is defined as a quantitative measure to estimate the increase in market share (sales) of an advertiser. At Pointlogic we do not treat media ROI, communications ROI, and marketing ROI separately. All of the variables must be taken into account to deliver a true money‐in‐ money‐out return, which is the real measure of advertising effectiveness. We develop precisely this, highly successful integrated marketing communications solutions that are delivering more effective communications and ROI to some of the world’s largest advertisers. ROI is a very rich and complex theme. Herein, I will share some of the key characteristics of our most successful projects, as well as some of the challenges that we’ve encountered. The single largest contribution marketers can make to dramatically increase the effectiveness of their marketing communication is to adopt a consumer centric approach to communication planning that merges media and creative
(the media and the message) – in other words, message based communications planning that is truly integrated and focused on the consumer. Understanding and putting integration into practice can mean the difference between the success and failure of a campaign. Brazil, being one of the few countries in the world where all agencies are full service (both the creative and media departments under one roof); it is the ideal location to put this concept into practice. It is important to understand that consumers don’t change behavior as a result of being confronted with media. Consumers change their behavior only if advertising affects their knowledge and attitudes about brands.
To maximize market share (or change consumer behavior), Pointlogic follows three principles: 1. Understand the consumer – specifically, what changes in knowledge and attitudes are going to work hardest to grow market share 2. Determine the message profile (e.g. talking about trust, safety, running costs, etc) that will bring about these changes 3. Deliver the right message profile with the appropriate media weights needed for optimal delivery of the message being put behind the media. Simply put, you have to know what you want to achieve (message profile) and you have to know which media channels are most appropriate for delivering the different messages in order to build an effective communication plan.
CONSUMERS CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR ONLY IF THE ADVERTISING AFFECTS THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES ABOUT BRANDS.
In addition to the important contribution of the marketing professional’s intuition and practical experience, many decisions in advertising are based on modeling. However, the result of some models (particularly those that try to explain the contribution of media channels to the success of a campaign) is a communication plan that does not bridge media and creative. Consequently, there is a drastic reduction in the effectiveness of the resulting communication plan – if effective at all. To clarify the point, consider the following example: in an effort to increase market share, let us suppose that a brand needs to communicate “detailed information” – in other words, this would be considered the message profile, albeit one dimensional. Throughout this industry, the most widely accepted and often used
technique for determining the appropriate channel to emit such a message is traditional media mix modeling. Media mix models look to past performance as an indicator of future success while often doing too little to account for the vital role that the message (creative) plays in the success of the campaign. The model might suggest, for example, that the channel out‐of‐home (OOH) which was used successfully to communicate “style” would yield similarly favorable results as in past campaigns. However, if OOH was used in the past to communicate the “style” of the product, there is no way to predict if a message of “detailed information” emitted on this same channel will have similarly positive results in the present. Traditional media mix modeling also fails in a much more subtle way. The message is not what you send, it’s what consumers receive. The media is not the message, but it does impact the message – sometimes in profound ways. For example, seeing an ad on television can have a very different impact than seeing the same ad on YouTube. Now "digital" media is creating a new layer of complexity to the challenge of delivering ROI. The
mixture of traditional media, digital media, and social media is becoming common: television advertising makes reference to the advertisers website that may link to a social media site where users create communities to offer opinions about products in discussion forums. The traditional media mix modeling method frequently fails when it is exposed to the kind of complexity created by such a mixture of media (traditional, digital, and social) and may result in conflicting conclusions about the consumer's behavior and the contribution of each channel to the ROI. And yet, despite these compelling reasons for elevating media to the strategic position it deserves, the creative department and the brand managers still dominate the campaign development process, and in this context, media has no voice.
ROI IS GOING TO CHANGE THE WAY MARKETING PROFESSIONALS DO BUSINESS IN NEW AND PROFOUND WAYS.
With the explosive growth in complexity that this industry has seen in recent years: fragmentation, consumer generated content, consumer in control, digital distribution of content, etc. ‐ the list of specialty areas is expanding fast – and the gap between creative and media gets wider and wider. In our experience, to have a successful project it is necessary to consider all of these challenges in order to obtain a real and quantitative measure of ROI. The economic crisis we find ourselves in now is acting as a very powerful catalyst for the development of ROI solutions, but it would be a mistake to think that there will ever be a return to “business as usual” as world economies stabilize. It would also be a mistake to think that ROI is just
another service that agencies or media companies can offer to advertisers. ROI is going change the way marketing professionals do business in new and profound ways. The old communications planning method based largely on reach and frequency optimization will not survive. It may deliver maximum exposures to a target audience, but it doesn't achieve the final objective: influence the knowledge and attitudes that make the consumer consider and then purchase a specific brand. New research about consumer and their characteristics, research exposing the strengths and weaknesses of the media channels, new technologies to accommodate and to manipulate data, new modeling techniques to forecast ROI, improved tools for
understanding and applying learnings – all suggest that an advertising model based on ROI has arrived and is here to stay. Now is the time for the Brazilian advertising industry to learn to work with and correctly interpret this wealth of dynamic information as opportunities are appearing every moment to develop product differentiation and to invigorate brands. The creation of solutions and tools for the analysis of market information is exactly the expertise of Pointlogic. The only question that remains is who – the agencies and/or the advertisers – will assume responsibility for creating the research, tools, standards, and methodology to deliver ROI in Brazil. David Eastman Vice President Pointlogic
NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE BRAZILIAN ADVERTISING INDUSTRY TO LEARN TO WORK WITH AND CORRECTLY INTERPRET THIS WEALTH OF DYNAMIC INFORMATION AS OPPORTUNITIES ARE APPEARING EVERY MOMENT TO DEVELOP PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION AND TO INVIGORATE BRANDS.