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Infographic: From Chaos to Credibility
AAM’s “Digital Insights” white paper series shares our findings from recent AAM research to shed some light on the challenges and opportunities media companies are facing in today’s digital landscape. The third paper, “From Chaos to Credibility,” addresses the issues with media measurement and focuses on some potential solutions. Here’s a preview of what we found:
The methods used to track users’ media engagement and activities are just as varied and fragmented as the devices themselves. A quarter of publishers use two or more solutions to evaluate user interactions with their content. The multiple options, solutions and methodologies for tracking user engagement contribute to the fragmentation challenges of digital measurement and lead to lack of standardized metrics in mobile.
In our research we also heard a clear desire for industry-wide collaboration for definitions and standards that all digital media could use to create a level playing field. The number of associations and vendors working toward solutions is just as fragmented as other areas of the digital arena. As an independent third party, AAM is able to maintain a neutral presence with numerous groups. There is a lot of collaboration happening in our industry and AAM is proud to share our members’ voices and gain feedback during these discussions.
Setting those guidelines and standards is the first step to bring order and comparability to digital media. The next critical phase is independent, third-party verification and timely reporting of data. Audits help ensure everyone is on the same page when buying and selling digital media. For buyers, it takes the guesswork out of the equation and provides confidence in the product. It ensures reliability because even if the data is sourced from different vendors, it still has to pass the rigorous inspection of an audit. And it ensures accountability among all participants in the process — vendors, publishers and buyers. As we come together as an industry to set standards across each channel and then agree to audits of those channels to provide confidence and comparability for buyers and sellers alike.
See how we can move as an industry from chaos to credibility in our infographic:
Q&A: Colin Decker, Group Operating Officer Discovery Digital Networks, on Putting Data to Work
This Q&A interview is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Colin Decker, Group Operating Officer of Discovery Digital Networks, on Putting Data to Work.
Q: Please describe the value of data to your editorial or sales efforts:
A: Having a solid foundation of data-driven decision-making is really mandatory at this point. You simply must have a well-defined methodology for the “why” of using data as well as talent and staffing to handle the “how”. And it’s not just a matter of generating reports. To really use data means that every member of your team must feel confident asking questions and be enabled to proactively seek the answers without depending on a separate research group. At Discovery Digital Networks, we use a combination of publicly available data sources as well as a series of proprietary purpose-built systems to inform what we do day-in and day-out. On both the Editorial and Sales sides of our businesses, the ability to react in real-time to audience demand is a critical capability as we define the digital video marketplace.
Q: Please describe a recent content or advertising initiative that leveraged data, how it did so, and how that generated a better end result:
A: We spend a lot of time mining data for signals and trends. At Discovery Digital Networks, we have many shows that publish multiple times per day so a typical exercise is to look at topic and category performance throughout the week. DNews is our twice-daily science and curiosity show that covers all types of weird, geeky cool facts. As we mined audience, engagement and sharing data over the course of several months, we noticed a small signal that seemed to indicate that space-themed programming performed better on Fridays. To test the signal, we created “Space Fridays” and saw a near 4x increase in all our audience metrics. The next natural question is “why space and why Friday?” but for now, we’re content to have better served the DNews audience with what they are wanting to see from us.
Q: The notion of “data” raises concerns with some. Please describe your take on the issues around publishers’ use of data and how you address some of the common concerns/issues:
A: It’s a reasonable concern when you think of user retargeting or leveraging transactional data to inform programming selection. While it’s great when Netflix makes a relevant movie suggestion based on your prior consumption, I don’t think I want my Kindle to suggest “Mr. Mom” because I just ordered diapers online! On a more serious level, the Edward Snowden NSA affair has opened everyone’s eyes to the fact that you don’t need to break the law to invade privacy. Data “triangulation” threatens to open too much information up to bad guys and marketers alike. I think we’ll see an inflection point in the coming 2 years where the average consumer grows to understand this and we’ll see more meaningful push-back to the harvesting and misuse of personal data.
Colin Decker is a media leader who has played a guiding role in the confluence of Television, web, video and social media. He has held programming, strategy and executive management roles at Current TV, Yahoo! and Virgin Investments. Colin is a frequent speaker on emerging media and has held teaching appointments at Boston University and Harvard University.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A: Vikram Somaya, GM Weather FX, The Weather Company on Putting Data to Work
News revenue declines despite growth from new sources
Click here to view the research item.
Digital Future in Focus 2014: The Upside of Mobile Disruption
Although smartphones have been in the hands of consumers for a long time, these devices, now along with tablets, have probably never had a more drastic impact on consumer behavior as they did in 2013. What started out as a niche, high-end market has quickly exploded into the mainstream, with Americans now spending more time – approximately 137 BILLION more minutes per month – on mobile platforms than on desktop.
In comScore’s new whitepaper, the 2014 U.S. Digital Future in Focus, we tackle of variety of themes influencing the current digital landscape, including social media, video, search, and e-commerce. But the prevailing theme that ties all these issues together is how our rapid increase in mobile usage is causing major shifts in all of these areas.
Social Media companies have already embraced the transition to mobile, perhaps more successfully than any other digital vertical. Many major social networks are now seeing far more traffic and time spent coming from mobile devices than from desktops, as the mobile/desktop divide continues to grow. Among the largest social networks, only Linkedin and Tumblr maintain a majority share on desktop, while newer social networks such as Instagram, Snapchat and Vine are almost exclusively mobile in their usage.
On the other end of the spectrum, e-commerce is still largely dominated by spending via desktop – yet signs indicate that mobile may disrupt this arena sooner than later. Mobile commerce now accounts for a meaningful percentage (10.5% in 2013) of total digital commerce and is growing at a significantly faster rate (23% year-over-year vs. 13% for desktop). And while m-commerce is only in the low double-digits as a percentage of total digital commerce, more than half of digital media time spent in the Retail category now comes from smartphones and tablets.
It tends to be true, as is the case with digital advertising, that dollars eventually follow eyeballs. In the case of retail shopping on mobile, the eyeballs are already there. It seems inevitable that, as technology and consumer behavior evolves, m-commerce will play an increasingly prevalent role in retail buying as it stands to become more disruptive to desktop-based e-commerce. And that’s not even to mention how mobile is currently disrupting the shopping and buying process for brick-and-mortar retailers as consumers take to showrooming.
So while disruption from mobile is inevitable, it’s important to remember that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. On balance, it is a value-creating innovation that delivers benefit to consumers, media companies and marketers alike. It’s beneficial for consumers, whose lives are becoming more convenient, more fun, more informed, and ultimately more connected due to their mobile devices. It’s beneficial for media companies because mobile usage is largely incremental to desktop, rather than cannibalistic. As consumers spend more time overall with screens, they engage with more content, conduct more searches, and do more online shopping. And it’s beneficial to marketers who have more channels and different creative palettes to use in developing strategies to reach, influence and convert consumers into brand buyers. While there are certainly challenges ahead, the benefits of mobile’s disruption greatly outweigh any disadvantages.
To learn more about this platform shift, along with other digital trends we can expect in the year ahead, check out the 2014 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report
2014 U.S. Digital Future in Focus
Click here to view the research item.
Local Search to Push Mobile Search & Discovery Adspend to Nearly $17bn by 2018, Finds Juniper
Click here to view the research item.
Q&A: Vikram Somaya, GM Weather FX, The Weather Company on Putting Data to Work
This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Vikram Somaya, GM Weather FX, The Weather Company on Putting Data to Work.
Q: Please describe the value of data to your editorial and sales efforts:
A: I think we’ve been in a unique position given that the weather itself is such a unique data set. Weather is real. It isn’t household income, it isn’t level of education or other standard demographic information. It exists as a tangible thing. That helped us envision how data can work for us, as a publisher.
At The Weather Company, data has two particular areas of impact:
For marketers, we combine weather and messaging with our data engine, which is integrated with our media delivery platform. In the retail world, for example, a company with 4,000 stores might let us know when a product is selling well—or not—and other information. We take this data and line it up against varying weather conditions for two to three years and effectively create predictive sales models. We can tell them that, in Miami, on a January morning, this is what people are likely to buy.
On the content side, which is well-run by Neil Katz, our VP/editor-in-chief, what has been interesting is not only the weather itself, but other information around it, which we are integrating into the experience. Certainly, people interested in weather are interested in other types of content as well, such as science and nature. We’ve begun to look at what content people look at based upon weather in their area.
An interesting piece here has been that their actions are based not only on what the weather is, but also on how it makes them feel. Weather has not only a direct impact on sales, but also on sentiment. If, after many days of bad weather, there are a few days of sunshine, it affects how people feel, which in turn affects what they are interested in.
Q: Please describe a recent content or advertising initiative that leveraged data, how it did so, and how that generated a better end result:
A: Okay, I have an example that combines both data and weather information that underlays, from a project we did with Pantene, a P&G hair care brand. Behind the weather information for any city there is a canvas that might show raindrops or bright sun and have a special type of ad format for our mobile application that can replace that canvas with weather-specific brand creative for our clients. We can match the ad to the specific weather condition.
So, for Pantene, we created an index that mapped a range of hair conditions to weather conditions—which we called “the fizziness index” internally. Depending on which city you checked, we would analyze the weather for that location, then pull up the corresponding ad with the appropriate Pantene product.
The results were measureable in actual sales. In towns where the ad appeared, retailers saw spikes in product sales. This is an ad unit that actually worked in the real world for sales—not just engagement and other click-through metrics. Our goal is to actually move sales. We can’t think of a more compelling argument for our marketers.
Q: The notion of “data” raises concerns with some. Please describe your take on the issues around publishers’ use of data and how you address some of the common concerns/issues:
A: So I have something I frequently do at conferences where I speak that illustrates the data position we are in at The Weather Company:
I ask everyone at the conference to stand up, introduce themselves to the person next to them, and then ask that person five questions. That person does not need to answer. Instead, they should think about how uneasy each question makes them. The questions are:
- Social: How old are you?
- Third party data: How much money do you make?
- Search: What are the last three things you searched online while alone?
- Purchase: What are the last three things you purchased online while alone?
- What is the weather today?
For that fifth one: No privacy concerns.
The Weather Channel is in a different position than many content companies. We have been, for 30 years, the brand people come to know how to behave around weather. We don’t ask your name or personal information. We collect business data around weather data. And weather information is 100 percent opt in—you have to ask for it.
I think we’re in a strange and unusual time where it is not clear who owns the information. Though I’d say that every time a publisher or marketer has cause to question “Am I doing the right thing?” the answer is probably no. With data, erring on the side of caution is the way to go. The right, fair thing to do is to protect the consumer.
Another thing to keep in mind is that what we are doing with data is natural and organic to the brand itself. There are certainly other publishers for which this is true. Some are trying to put a square peg in a round hole with data. We should use data to bring value to the experience, not to shoehorn data because it is the hot thing. If there is a fundamentally organic way to build value for the user, it is worth doing.
As general manager of The Weather Company’s WeatherFX division, Vikram Somaya leads the team that creates localized ad targeting solutions using Weather’s access to location data and the best, most comprehensive weather data in the world. Vikram joined The Weather Company from Thomson Reuters, where he served as vice president of global operations and audience. Previously, Vikram helped build out data-driven marketing company Bluekai as managing director of business development and channel sales. He served as executive vice president of sales and marketing at Milabra, consulting an early-stage company in machine-learning-derived technologies. He also served as vice president of strategic alliances at Phorm, an online behavioral targeting technology company, and as vice president of strategy management at Operative Media, an advertising business management company.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A: Colin Decker, Group Operating Officer, Discovery Digital Networks on Putting Data to Work
Programmatic + Mobile: The Differing Priorities Between Buyers & Sellers
Click here to view the research item.