Who's on First? Starcom and MAGNA Global Square Off
Last week's Media Industry Buzz shared insights on second-by-second ratings data developed based on TiVo
data by MAGNA Global researchers. After reading our report, a representative of Publicis' Starcom suggested the report misrepresented facts. Following below are comments from Starcom, along with the response from MAGNA Global's Steve Sternberg.
From Starcom
"Your story reads "Magna…established the first industry deal for access to TiVo's groundbreaking second-by-second ratings, providing exclusive insights" is not factually accurate. STARCOM USA was the first agency to purchase TiVo's second-by-second ratings (six months
before any other agency) and Starcom was and still is the only agency to conduct any Upfront deal based on a second-by-second metric and for that matter minute-by-minute. In fact, Starcom even came up with the product's brand name (StopIIWatch)!"
MAGNA Global's Steve Sternberg responds:
"MAGNA was the first to
negotiate a holding company level deal for (Interpublic) - so I guess that's apples and oranges."
In fact, Sternberg did say in his cover note that the deal was the first holding company deal, so the error was ours.
IAG Makes Case for Recall = Engagement
Industry conflicts seem to be in vogue this week, asIAG Chief Strategy Officer Barbara Zack responded to the exclusive Jack Myers Media Business Report interview with Frank Findley of ARS Group, focusing on the
comparative role and value of advertising recall research. While Zack and Findley seem to agree on most points, Zack asked to clarify what she considers to be general "misperceptions and
misunderstandings" about the IAG offerings. Following are comments shared by Zack in a written response and a phone conversation.
"Frank Findley (ARS Group) makes several excellent points regarding ad effectiveness. We too have concluded that creative engagement (the ability of the ad to command the viewer's attention) is the single most important determinant of advertising effectiveness. We measure creative engagement first via our General Recall metric - which captures
the ability of the ad to make at least a short-term impression in memory. We consider General Recall to be necessary (an ad cannot have an impact if it's made no impression on viewers) but insufficient (if the ad is attributed to the wrong brand, or the message is not conveyed, then the ad will not be effective) – and so, we measure Brand and Message recall as well.
"We are also in agreement regarding the importance of persuasion - for an ad to truly have a powerful impact on sales, it must persuade, and research has proven that persuasion is best accomplished when emotions are engaged. IAG's Likeability metric specifically reflects the emotional response to the ad, a quality that has been identified by the ARF and by
the IPA dataMINE project as the key predictor of the sales potential of an ad. Our Purchase Consideration metric obviously captures the final persuasive power of the ad – reflecting the emotional response and the inherent appeal of the product being advertised. (It is a custom question specifically designed for each advertiser independently.) Mr. Findley
seems to refer to some "new recall monitoring service" that doesn't take these further steps; we are not familiar with any such service, but would agree that these are critically important measurements that should certainly be captured when tracking ad performance.
"We are also in agreement with Mr. Findley that program engagement is the second most important factor determining ad effectiveness (for any given level of media support); he says "ad recall and persuasiveness do increase if placed in more engaging programming". Further, he seems to refer to advertisers who have used advertising recall as a currency for media evaluation – we are not aware of any advertisers having done so
but we too would advise against such a practice. Our clients have used IAG's Program Engagement metric as a currency for media evaluation – this metric is derived from the viewer's ability to recall specific elements of the show itself (not the ads) and is a direct, unbiased measure of viewer attentiveness. Program Engagement captures the quality of the environment offered to advertisers above and beyond the size of the show's audience. We are capturing attentiveness to the program by asking six or more
questions about the content of the program. We are not suggesting advertisers choose a program environment based on ad recall, nor do our clients do that. We are assessing program environment based on viewer engagement with program content. The correlation between program engagement and the ability to recognize ads that aired within the show is extraordinary.
"Our [advertiser] clients are also using IAG data for commercial creative diagnostics. Our two points of differentiation are real time measurement of ad execution, such as 15 vs. 30 and different creative. Second,
because we measure everything on air, the learning that can be gained from a critical appraisal of what worked and didn't work by looking at all our metrics is tremendous."
On the heels of AOL's acquisition of behavioral targeting company Tacoda, eMarketer advises Jack Myers Media Business Report "Just as paid search ignited the online ad market with highly relevant text ads in support of direct marketing goals, a new breed of
Web advertising is grabbing the attention of brand marketers seeking to reach consumers through highly targeted display ads. With behavioral targeting, the goal is to target people, not Web pages - providing marketers with an increased ROI based on fewer, but more relevant ad impressions.
eMarketer's projections show that behavioral targeted ad spending, at $575 million in 2007, will nearly double next year to reach $1 billion and then nearly triple to $3.8 billion by 2011."
Hispanic Viewers Least Impacted by DVR
A proprietary analysis issued by Marci L. Ryvicker Vice President, Equity Research for Wachovia Capital Markets reports how DVR (Digital Video Recorder) use affects broadcast networks'
commercial ratings, and suggests that Hispanic networks are least impacted by time-shifting technology. "In fact," Ryvicker comments, "Univision, the No.1-rated Hispanic network, retains the highest absolute audience levels during commercial breaks (whether they be during live
playback or time-shifted playback) versus all of its peers. For more information, contact Marci Ryvicker at marci.ryvicker@wachovia.com.
