Advertising changes constantly in the digital age. Brands are always testing the mix to find the best way to reach potential customers: television campaigns, video ads within digital and social media, rotations of 15-, 30- and 60-second spots on traditional radio, podcasts or music-sharing services like Spotify and Pandora, print and mobile display ads, and more – it’s a constant rotation of creative, media and tactics.
Quinlan Media Director Malorie Benjamin was recently selected to participate in a panel discussion with four local experts at the Buffalo Broadcasters Association Advertiser Roundtable Breakfast on June 4 at The Buffalo Club in downtown Buffalo. The audience, consisting in large part of of sales executives from businesses throughout the Western New York region, was eager to learn about media purchasing and how their teams could maximize this side of the business.
“We discussed what type of information media planners and buyers need and can provide to media sales reps”, Malorie noted. “We talked about social media and digital campaigns and comparing performance to traditional media. How are we assessing the campaigns and how do we compare which is working best?”
Here are three trends that were identified during the panel presentation:
Trend #1: Traditional advertising techniques can still work with new media.
Part of Malorie’s discussion emphasized how content delivery companies such as Hulu and Pandora are considered part of the television and radio mix, instead of just “digital” ways to advertise.
“I wanted to include other options outside of what we would typically think of with TV and radio,” Malorie noted. “Hulu is considered just another station on a TV buy rather than just a digital form, which is a major contributing factor in the way the landscape has changed.”
According to the Marketingcharts debrief “How is the Marketing Media Mix changing?” , media budget cutbacks seem to still stray away from digital and are focused more on traditional. However, when there is a conglomerate of both traditional and digital, there will be a greater variety of possibilities and combinations for advertising strategies.
“I wanted to include other options outside of what we would typically think of with TV and radio,” Malorie said.
Trend #2. Attribution models are the wave of the future.
Attribution models are defined as a set of rules that determine how credit for sales and conversions are assigned to touchpoints during the conversion path. For example, would a message communicated via television be given credit if a consumer saw the ad and made a purchase? Or would it be the digital display ad the consumer saw? Or an audio ad on a podcast? And how do you tie that back?
“Attribution modeling is getting more popular among larger clients and in larger markets,” Malorie said. “We are starting to see this being used in media buying and apply it to where it makes the most sense.”
Attribution models requires an advertiser or an agency to have a deep understanding of their business model and strategy and demands definition regarding how each marketing and sales channel works together within the decision-making funnel.
Trend #3: Digital marketing continues to disrupt the media-buying environment.
“To me,” Malorie explained, “ the digital world makes work more diverse which is interesting and complex at the same time. However, the importance of TV and radio buying is also affected, and it forces media planners to become more educated in what they do and how they do it during a time of constant change.”
According to the Marketingcharts debrief, the advertiser’s budget for digital advertising has increased by 15% year-over-year.
“95 percent said they would increase their digital brand advertising spending if they could verify that it created the desired result,” Malorie noted, “and 82 percent would do so if they had the ability to verify that the advertising was actually delivered to their intended audience.”
According to CWS article “How to Market using New Media” , with new media comes new metrics — numbers and statistics that open a whole new world of opportunities. An example would be finding what are called intenders for new media such as Pandora. The one-minute commercials can find intenders who may intend to buy, for example, a Honda, and hyper-target to that region in that specific area code. Interactions and online behavior are made available for many advertising outlets.
The Buffalo Broadcasters Media Night Out will be the next event where advertising and PR experts can come together and explore the many different realms of working with the media.
For more information about the Buffalo Broadcasters Association and upcoming events, visit http://www.buffalobroadcasters.com/.
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