A morning with Harper Reed

Last week I spent the morning listening to, and then talking with Harper Reed. For those who don’t know him he was one of the founders of Threadless, (one of the first practitioners of crowd sourcing) and then Obamas CTO during the 2012 election campaign.

In that later role he led the team that built the technology platform that engaged tens of millions of supporters and helped raise more than $1bn in donations.

He told an impressive story of building what was essentially a massive customer engagement system, with associated content management and donation platform, and then training and motivating thousands of volunteers to use it. One platform managed voter and supporter contact across channels as diverse as twitter, text, email, mail, outbound phone and even door knocking.

The marketing and mainstream commentators hailed this as a masterpiece of “micro targeting”, where small but coherent groups of voters were engaged on issues that most appealed to them.

Harper made two really interesting points, both of which had not been picked up by mainstream case studies.

The first was: this wasn’t really micro targeting, but actually micro listening. The volunteers who knocked on doors and called voters weren’t primarily trying to “sell” Obama. They were trying to listen to what voters needed from him, and what would motivate them to engage with the campaign. Every call, every visit was data captured using an app, and that data appended to the voters record. That listening informed messaging for that individual voter, and for cohorts matched to them.

The second point was one of integration. This was a tech presentation by a tech leader, aged under 35. Clearly he was proud of the work in channels like twitter, instant click to donate on text, and personalised emails. But he acknowledged that much of the heavy lifting with voters took place with old fashioned media, like phone, door knocking and above all in direct mail. Shock horror, paper and mail still have a huge role in this era of digital. And the insight I took from speaking with him: digital media may create the insight. Interactivity tells you in real time what voters engage with. But a real letter shows you value them and their opinions. And that changes minds, and generates money

Not what I was expecting to hear from a young tech guy. But a morning well spent

Written by Mike Colling, MD of MC&C

Shop with your eyes, not with your hands

Everyone has their own way of shopping. Some like to walk in, product in mind and walk straight out in five minutes flat; while others enjoy browsing, never entirely sure what they might leave with. For the latter group, advertisers are in a never ending battle to manipulate what people might buy; and for the former, they are constantly looking to break shopper’s nerves of steel and have them purchase something extra at a last minute impulse.

It appears, however, that the consumer battle has tipped in the advertisers favour, as interactive advertising takes a leap in the right direction. The latest technological developments at Lancaster University provide the advertising world with the Sideways project. The system allows for a single camera to track the faces and eye movements of up to fourteen people simultaneously. This can allow for the adverts to adapt to the product preferences of each individual shopper.

 

While this technology is still relatively new, previous attempts could only focus on one person at a time and the calibration process was “time-consuming and annoying.” With this newer, simpler system however, senior researcher Andreas Bulling told the BBC that he expected “this technology to become available widely in the near future”, possibly in shops within five year.

So what might we see in the future of shopping? Will we see brighter and bolder ads, images and creatives screaming for our attention? Or will adverts become more subtle, with each individual consumer taking home their own unique experience of a store. As the technology develops further in the coming years, we wait to see how this possible game changer to the world of interactive advertising will manifest itself.

Who wants some TLC?....Not me!

Last night [Tuesday, April 30^th 2013] Discovery Network International launched the brand new channel TLC in the UK and Ireland.

Billed as a female version of ‘Dave’ the channels flags-ship shows include - HereComes Honey Boo Boo (an off-the-wall reality show depicting the life of a seven year old beauty pageant contestant and her entourage family, made famous by the delightful ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’ series). A documentary that follows a woman who is addicted to eating cat hair! ‘Swinger Wives’ (speaks for itself) and a smattering of other UK commissions: Holly Valance’s ‘Ultimate Shopper’, Dawn O’Porter’s ‘Undercover Mums’ and Lisa Snowdon’s ‘Your Style in His Hands’.

Whilst the brow of these shows may be lower than the Mariana trench, there is clearly still a huge appetite for ‘women’s content’ and in a declining market (with magazines such as More coming off the shelves after 25 years, due to faltering sales) the channel does opens up new avenues for advertisers trying to reach young women.

 
My personal feeling is that TLC is a lot like a junk food binge. You’ll crave it at times, you may enjoy the hit, but you know you have done something wrong and feel just a little bit guilty afterwards.

Industry News: Blippa boldly Goes…

Love it or hate it – Star Trek has been serving up Sci-Fi to the masses for over 46 years now, making pieces of “fantasy tech” such as transporters and photon torpedoes household names. But tonight (29th April) makes a milestone for a slightly more 21^st century piece of technology – augmented reality. As the first ‘Blippable’ ad is aired this evening across the channel 5 network at 9pm. kick-starting the launch campaign for the latest film released under the franchise ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness.’

Those in the know, having downloaded the ‘Blippa’ augmented reality app made by a tech company of the same name, will be able to interact with the ad on a whole new level – accessing additional unique content, as well as being able to enter into a competition to attend the premier of the film in Tokyo.

Emily Fairhead-Keen, business director at MEC has been quoted by MediaWeek as saying:  "Screen synchronicity is not a 'nice to have' any more, it's a critical part of our planning.

"We should embrace smarter ways to engage consumers on both screens, especially with categories such as entertainment, which lend themselves so well to user engagement and the sourcing of additional content/prizing."

Of course, the same old fears associated with accessing AR content remain – namely the need to download the app, which is seen as a barrier to entry. But in this case prior knowledge of the ad is also necessary – as the spot will only last for 60 seconds, users do not have the luxury of being able to access the augmented ads at a time that suits them (such as the press ads run by Waitrose in 2011).

Despite the above concerns this ad has definitely got the agency talking today, we are always on the look-out for innovative ways to make our campagins stand out and many of us will be tuning in tonight with our phazers set to stun! Enjoy.

When will media planners start linking what with why?

It has been a bug bear of mine for nearly 30 years- almost the entire time I have worked in media- that there are very few complete media planners. Most fall into one of two groups, divided by the intellectual equivalent of the Grand Canyon.

There are the traditional “above the line” or communications planners. Focused on consumer insight they ape the anthropologists- spending hours intellectualising consumer motivations, and asking why a consumer might behave in a particular way. Have created their intellectual construct they rarely seek experimental data to prove that consumers actually did behave the way they predicated.

Across the Canyon we find the “below the line” or data planners. With their “my data is bigger than yours” datasets they can tell you to 5 decimal places what is happening in the world, but rarely why.

And its this latter group who are running the media mad house this week. Neilsen published their monthly online media usage figures for February on March 28^th. A harmless set of numbers that tell us how many unique visitors used the web per se, and then top ten sites within the major categories such as broadcast, entertainment. We learn that 41.7 million people went online during the month, and 8.5 million adults visited Sky.com. All very jolly.

But less so were the headlines that accompanied the release. “online numbers at lowest level for a year” “online uses down by nearly 1 million from January”.

No s**t Sherlock.  The shortest month of the year- 10% fewer hours of surfing than Janaury, and we are surprised when reach falls by 2.5%.  When, oh when will we manage to create a rounded media planner?

The Route to making outdoor more measurable

One of the main gripes about out of home advertising from agencies and advertisers alike is that it’s notoriously difficult to measure accurately, both in terms of number of impressions delivered and overall effectiveness. This week the industry took a significant step to address this with the relaunch of research body Postar as Route. Whilst Postar took advertising locations as its starting point, Route is a people-focused measuring system, incorporating GPS travel data taken from 28,000 individuals, who each carried a GPS meter for nine days.

 

The research was conducted over nearly 4 years and cost £19million; it created 19 billion GPS records for analysis and this will increase by a further 3.3 billion each year. Once movements were mapped, Route and its research partner Ipsos MediaCT started to calculate the number of people that would pass any of the 450,000 outdoor advertising ‘frames’ that cover the UK, while eye-tracking research was used to work out the likelihood that a passer-by would notice the frame.

 

According to Route this new tool will allow advertisers to know with much greater accuracy how many people see their outdoor campaigns on average, as well as further useful insights such as age, class, lifestyle and shopping habits. It will be possible to plan by town or to choose from one of 24 major conurbations or 14 BARB areas. It should allow us to more effectively plan outdoor campaigns around the specific routes that a given audience take. At MC&C, we already use tools such as IPA Touchpoints to map media consumption through the day, and we’re pleased to hear that this new research from Route will be connecting with this to improve the accuracy of this mapping.

 

The research has already thrown up some eye-catching figures, for example, the average person will make eye contact with 27 roadside posters and 14 bus ads each day. Even more incredibly, every time London commuters make a tube journey they will encounter an average of 74 ads! In the era of such broad exposure to media it inevitably becomes more and more important that we are able to target as accurately as possible, and as such Route should hopefully become a vital tool in how we plan out of home advertising in the future.

Are You Being Served? TV targeting joins the digital age

Although later than scheduled British Sky Broadcasting felt sufficiently confident to announce Sky AdSmart to the City recently.

AdSmart will deliver a specific commercial, within usual live broadcast streams, to a carefully targeted household based on the information provided by Sky Customers who have volunteered to share their personal data.

The service will be available across 8 Sky Channels (but not Sky News) and starts testing later this year  with 30-50 guinea pig brands with a view to launch fully in 2014.

Essentially Sky is introducing niche targeting to TV; minimising wastage and making campaigns more efficient in terms of reaching an absolute audience.

In fact the term ‘target audience’ seems woefully inadequate on reading Sky’s description of what it describes as ‘segmentation’;

‘Sky AdSmart allows precisely targeted TV buying, by combining a unique set of attributes to match the desired customer profile

Reading down the list of possible attributes it is difficult not to be impressed by the numbers;

16 Regions, 15 Cities
13 types - based on financial need, behavioural influence & preferences
15 Experian Mosaic segments of demograph and lifestyle including lifestage and age of kids
7 tiered predictor of disposable income with partners Experian

Regionality alone creates opportunities that will significantly change the way that we can plan and buy TV.

Sky estimates that the regional TV market is currently worth £800million and is dominated by ITV and, to a lesser extent, Channel 4 & Five. The ability to target large metropolitan areas suggests that TV will compete with regional Press, Cinema and Outdoor budgets too.

There are numerous product groups that are not on TV because it is too ‘mass market’.

Financial products such as Asset Management have always been the domain of Financial Press and Outdoor but could more effectively be reached through AdSmart in future. Advertising for Mortgages, Insurance and Savings can be served to the people who are most likely to purchase the product depending of their lifestage and income.

Luxury brands - from high performance cars to high fashion- steer clear of TV because it is too broad and ‘downmarket’ but ads can now be served to their more elite customers in their favourite programmes.

Brands may benefit by using their whole product range and serving a different ad to varying households. Sky uses Ford as an example of where lifestage may dictate whether an ad for a Fiesta or an SUV is served.

Most optimum use may be as an addition to a broader campaign, particularly where a secondary and more elusive audience is the target.

Of course niche targeting comes at a price. Sky is likely to trade a cost per impression, which will be at a premium to usual pricing. This move in itself could bring welcome change to the way TV airtime is traded. Advertisers are keener than ever to understand which half of their advertising works & AdSmart will have to prove its worth in terms of ROI.

The whole point of TV for some advertisers has always been its ability to reach a mass audience- not necessarily a niche one. So a fast food brand may have a buying audience of adults 1634 for example, but the target is ‘everyone’. FMCG brands use TV across the board to sell product to the whole population. Niche targeting does not appeal to everyone; wastage to some brands is additional value to others.

Once the Digital Switchover was complete many of the previous constraints on TV were removed. The technology behind AdSmart relies on a hard drive in the Sky HD Box.

Hence, Sky is not alone in driving more targeted TV ad serving.  YouView (jointly owned by the BBC, ITV & Channel 4) and Virgin Media are looking to create similar opportunities. Channel 4 are already using their database of 6 million registered users of 4OD to serve specifically targeted pre-rolls and this is common in the US with TiVo.

Sky is very much pioneering in terms of advertising in the live broadcast stream though and, should testing be successful, all of their competition will follow suit.

As advertiser insight has increased with the wider use of data TV has fallen short of the mark in terms of targeting. AdSmart will enable TV advertising to compete with the kind of relevant and personalised advertising that has fuelled the growth in Online spend in recent years.