A New Type of Digital Target that Enhances the Ad

The creative is the payload of the media missile.  Why ignore the payload and treat all ads as identical?  It seems goofy looking backward, but that is exactly what we all have been doing since advertising began in Egypt 2000 years ago (on rocks).  Of course readers have read about DriverTags^TM here and elsewhere by now.  What is new is the partnership with IRI, which is one of the largest research companies in the world, and in the U.S. measures over 90,000 stores and 350,000,000 shopper cards, and is a leader in the sale of digital targets.

As everyone knows, digital targets are a multi-billion-dollar industry in themselves, accounting for 9% of all of the money spent on programmatic digital, for example.  As well they should, since in most digital, which is direct response, the target is as important as the creative if not more so -- quite the reverse of brand advertising.

Both creative and target are dominantly important.  These are the first targets to recognize that.

DriverTags^TM are the means by which RMT has been able to append 265 psychological signals to each of 93,000,000 Americans and their devices. This wouldn't have been possible without StatSocial, the social media enabler which provides the deepest and proven most robust understanding of who people are and what they mean to say.

Over and above the self-serving layer, if these were not my own babies I would still be recommending to all my clients and friends that they do a test as soon as is practical, measuring whatever they want -- but especially, if they can, conversion against what they are doing now -- a classical A/B test.  Very easy on programmatic digital.  And then they will know.  They know why Nielsen Catalina (conceived/sponsored by Turner), Simmons, Wieden + Kennedy and others showed such strong third party validations.

Howard Shimmel devised the method of increasing linear TV lift using a variation on these digital targets.  "Why not DriverTag^TM the ads," he mused, "and then see if the programs with greatest DT overlap have higher ROI according to Nielsen Catalina?"  So, we did it and ARF Executive Vice President Horst Stipp was happy to present it at an ARF Annual Conference.  The most advanced brands are doing exactly that today, in some cases with the most advanced agencies, who turned them on to it.

Thanks to all of those clients and friends whose constant support and encouragement brought us to 93 million Americans -- and to those who lead the conversion of the industry to ad-and-person-centric targeting.

Photo credit:  Rawpixel/Unsplash

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