January 25, 2023
Commentary
Audience-Based Buying Is Taking Over -- How Advertisers Can Successfully Adapt
- by Marianne Vita , Op-Ed Contributor, June 2, 2021
“The only thing that is constant is change.” That adage rang true in ancient Greece, when it was originally stated by philosopher Heraclitus, and today it rings truer than ever for the TV
advertising industry.
According to a recent survey of over 200 marketers, 89% of marketers say they …
4 comments about "Audience-Based Buying Is Taking Over -- How Advertisers Can Successfully Adapt".
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Marianne, while 89% of "marketers"may say in a survey that they expect a "significant" shift away from demographic -based" media buys to "audience-based" buys the fact of the matter---where TV is concerned---is that upwards of 90% of all buys will be done the old fashioned way this year---and the percentage may even be higher.. This is not to say that TV advertisers shouldn't be exploring---and testing---alternative methods that involve much higher CPMs but promise improved targeting, as I strongly support that. However, the way most TV advertisers approach TV time buying---especially at the national level--must be radically changed if any move to "audience" buying is really to gain traction. You can't force your brands into massive, "corporate", upfront buys and then expect these CPM-driven deals to fit the goals and needs of specific brands. What's needed is two kinds of upfront buying---one for the CPM/ GRP tonnage chompers; the other for individual brands who can chart their own course as best they can and use some of the new targeting methods where the data is of sufficient quality to apply. Indeed many brands may opt to go both ways---allocating part of their TV buys to low CPM, tonnage, placements and part to better targeted but more costly "audience" buys. Unfortunately I see little movement in this direction and the next upfront, which will see a probable return to normal spending levels for "linear TV" pus some dollars being garnered by CTV/OTT/AVOD, reflects this.
Well, who'd have thunk that!
Apparently for decades (and closer to a century) marketers have not bought an audience. They simply signed up to buy ad impressions. Of course that is simply not true as Ed has eloquently demonstrated.
The irony is that during the nascence of internet-based digital advertising most campaigns were measured by traffic impressions. It took many years for the industry to accept that served impressions greatly overstate the actual audience. It now seems that actual audience data is a real thing for many of the digerati.
Which brings to mind that the wisdom of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr's 1849 epithet of "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" is yet again shown to be true.
John, what amazes me is the assumption by many digital-only people that TV advertisers---to say nothing of those who use radio, OOH,newspapers and magazines-----have not been targeting people---or consumers---with their ads all along but, instead have been targeting bot-like creatures called GRPs who happen to be 18-49 years old. Even stranger is the almost total disconnect between what is thought of as media "targeting" and the way most advertisers and their agency "creatives" develop positionning strategies for their brands ---usually involving certain mindset appeals among product user segments---and how they buy media. The fact that media sellers and buyers agree to use broad and basically meaningless age/sex "demos" such as adults aged 18-49 or women aged 25-54 as the basis for gross audience tonnage guarantees is taken to mean that's how the brands are targeting their campaigns. Which, if true, means that most CMOs and brand managers are idiots. Ah, but now, we have a complete revolution in the offing---one that targets "audiences" not those pesky beings known as GRPs. We are saved---at last.
Too true.
My rule of thumb was to try and get 70% of the All People Ratings in the advertisers target demgraphic as provided by their in-house commissioned product usage survey, or the perceived target for new products.
What the advertiser thought of as '30% wastage' was actual natural human usage and should be thought of as an unexpected opportunity to present the brand to potential new users, as that is where the growth is as shown by Prof. Byron Sharp. I'd suggest to the client that the biggest rating programme that they desperately wanted to be in (think SuperBowl) would be disqualified from their schedule by their rule as they were targeting Grocery Buyers 25-55 (who were less than half of the audience). If just 5%-10% of that 'wastage' tried the product that would be the most cost effective spend they could do.
The old motto of ... if you don't reach them they won't buy applied then and still applies now. What has changed is that the communication conduits have changed and splintered. I doubt that the "70%" rule would apply now due to diversification and would probably be something like 50%.