Blueprint for a World Changing 2020 Upfront
Reset Marketing, Starting With the 2020 Upfront – Part 3. If I were still at an agency, here's what I would do for each client. Let's assume the exemplary client has multiple brands.
Be sure to register for the June 9 Zoom conversation. Will COVID-19 Move Advanced & Addressable TV Forward or Backward? Bill will be participating in the Jack Myers Leadership Conversation along with Comcast's Marcien Jenckes, DISH's Kevin Arrix, and Cadent's Jamie Power.
- Management by Objectives (MBO) Review
What are the client's Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)? Relate as best you can to those KPIs at each stage in this process. We assume that the KPIs are primarily ROI and Brand Equity, plus secondarily growing or not losing market share.
- History Review
Look at last 12 months spending by client and competitors. Base spending on client actuals, and for competitors, Standard Media Index. Pay special attention to what client and competitors are doing right now in the contraction. What does this all imply with regard to the 12-month period starting October 2020? If growing share or not losing share are part of client MBOs, share of voice (SOV) will have to be higher than share of market (SOM). Form an agency position on total investment recommendation.
- Probable Budget Allocation by Brand
Based on the brand level detail of the latter phase, come up with recommendations for media budgets for brands under the corporate umbrella. Some younger brands might have realistic growth possibilities earning them higher share of budget to achieve more SOV than SOM.
- Probable Creative
The creative currently or most recently on air plus what has been discussed with client are the basis for this phase of thinking. During promotional seasonal periods the ads which ran during those periods are indicators of what kinds of ads might be run during the corresponding periods. For competitors, make best guesses based on trade press, scuttlebutt, and ads running or had been run during previous seasonal periods e.g. back to school, etc.
- Targeting
Form an impression of the positioning and counter-positioning of the client brand and its competitors as it might look to the consumer during that target period.
Buy an MRI-Simmons analysis of the attitudinal composition of the user groups of the client brand and its competition including the overlap groups who buy client and competitors. Compare this to the probable creative for client and competition. Do this in two stages:
- Use 2017 Simmons data which includes RMT DriverTagsTM. Being back data, this will probably be inexpensive. If it turns out to be valuable, go to step b. Or if enough known to go forward without step b, do so.
- Use latest MRI/Simmons two-year combined data, including DriverTagsTM if useful in step a.
Step back and let this steep in the subconscious. Take notes when ideas start a flow of their own.
Based on this thinking, consider whether the client's most recent target for each brand is the best possible target – ignoring the tendency to reduce to a sex/age group. Decide on the right target disregarding accidents of history such as the tradition of using sex/age groups. Obtain data on the media exposure of the right targets through a source such as 605, NCSolutions, and/or another trusted source. Do not hesitate to use more than one source. For example, NCSolutions has a bias toward the third of the population (research cooperators) that will be reflected in its Nielsen peoplemeter panel. 605 does not have research cooperator bias and has 21 million households sample size (roughly a thousand times larger than Nielsen peoplemeter panel) and is a convenience sample based on households rather than people. However, the late Gale Metzger taught us that the people rating is 80% determined by the household rating. By using two sources, seasoned judgment can help make media selection decisions better, when each source has a different advantage over the other.
- Impact Per Impression
Have RMT DriverTagTM current client ads and the last-time prototype client ads for seasonal promotional periods. Have RMT run resonance scores for each ad with each TV program, network, each daypart within each network, major websites, apps, YouTube channels. Have RMT provide custom audiences of people reachable by anonymous ID via digital and addressable TV who are motivationally predisposed to pay attention to each client ad.
- Reach/Frequency
Use an optimizer or Bayesian manual technique to create the best possible brand schedules which maximize reach of the best target within the budgets assumed in stage 3. Consider not only CPM/reach against the right target but also ad resonance with context and with viewer. Use 605 and NCSolutions to estimate cross-platform reach/frequency against the right target.
Next, roll up the intended buys to the network level – TV networks as well as digital suppliers such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and other majors as well as promising minors such as Reset Digital, Epsilon/Conversant, TruOptik, Freedive, Roku, et al.
Make sure that all this jibes with the existing contract guarantees, or overperforms those.
- Network Level Conversation Guides
Go to each network with the desired list and price, and request for third party outcome measurement baked into that price. Negotiate. Rinse and repeat.
Read:
Part 1 Reset Marketing, Starting With the 2020 Upfront
Part 2 Pennywise and Pound Foolish: The Almighty CPM
The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet.
Bill Harvey
Bill Harvey, who won an Emmy® Award in 2022 for his invention of set top box data, has spent over 35 years leading the way in media research with pioneer thinking in New Media, set top box data, optimizers, measurement standards, privacy standards, the A…
