Marketers to Play Catch Up with Changing Media Patterns

Kicking off the Advertising Horizons session, this panel included Initiative EVP David Ernst, P&G Information Technology Fellow Ted McConnell and Tribal DDB VP GM Paul Gunning. Moderator and Maven Networks SVP Sales & Marketing Susan Bratton set the stage by stating 90 percent of a target audience could be reached in 1972 with three major television networks, whereas today it takes more than 100 channels to achieve the same reach. Overwhelmingly, the panel agreed this sea change isn’t over, and that marketers will have to act quickly and nimbly to keep pace.

McConnell said the industry lacks broad based, comparable metrics to make informed media decisions. He said Nielsen isn’t cutting it, as its sample size is far too small to properly measure online media. He added that the current model of using GRPs to buy media isn’t working. Ernst disagreed saying this use of GRPs will stick around but simply be relegated to a lesser role.

Commenting on the upfront, McConnell said the process treats consumer attention as a commodity, which will lead increasingly self-aware consumers to shun marketing efforts treating them like TV-watching livestock. McConnell added many agencies and networks are not facing this, displaying instead all the common symptoms of trauma, including denial, anger and grieving. Networks are frustrated and don’t know what to do. Ernst says the ball is in the network’s court and they need to make the next move if they are to survive as a viable medium.

Referring to pop up blockers and other forms of “shielding,” McConnell marveled at the amount of money consumers will spend to block themselves from advertising saying, “that’s how bad it’s got.”

Acknowledging the changing media habits of “Millenials,” Moderator Bratton then asked the panel if marketers are ready and able to target this group. Ernst say marketer are not ready and that this segment’s “continuous partial attention,” along with the group’s desire to create their own media experience, will make it very difficult for advertisers to craft effective channels through which to target millenials.

McConnell pointed to P&G’s Tremor, a group of 250,000 teens and tweens “groomed” to virally spread marketers messages as a potential channel through which effective marketing to millennials could occur.