Digital & Social Committee

Digital media has become a part of consumer's daily lives and they have become accustomed to viewing content and connecting with people wherever and whenever they want. Social media and viral videos have especially exploded in the last few years. Despite this rapid growth, clients have many questions and their issues include measurement, agency selection, internal org structure, and relinquishing control to the consumer while trying to influence the dialogue.

The Digital & Social Committee is for members who lead digital, social, and/or mobile marketing and/or initiatives at their organizations. We will drive industry thought leadership, share best practices and expertise, and facilitate discussion and topics to inform better decision making about such topics as social media, content marketing, and native advertising. The committee will provide a forum for members to elevate themselves and their respective organizations via interaction with their peers as well as an outside perspective from invited guests.

This committee helps program the annual ANA Digital & Social Media Conference, next planned for July 7-9, 2020 in San Diego, CA. Presentations and event recaps from the 2019 Digital & Social Media Conference can be found here.

Committee Co-Chairs: 
Michael Donnelly, Formerly Senior Vice President, Group Head, Global Digital Marketing, MasterCard Worldwide
John H. Bell, Vice President, Enterprise Digital Marketing, Travelers Insurance

The ANA staff member managing the Digital & Social Committee are Molly Knol and Barbie Romero.

Discussion Topics

• Organizing your company internally to "win" in digital
• Content Marketing
• Influencer Marketing
• E-Commerce
• Social Media
• Mobile Marketing
• Gaming
• Online video
• New Digital Technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, etc.)
• Agency and vendor management/relations
• Role of traditional and digital/newer media within overall integrated marketing mix
• Data & Measurement
• Different Roles of Social Media including Customer Service, Brand/Product Awareness, Fundraising, Legal/Human Resources, etc.
• Location-Based Programs
• Privacy and Security Issues

Leadership Initiatives

2018-2019 Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising
For the fourth time, ANA and White Ops have partnered on a study to measure the among of fraud in the digital advertising ecosystem. Fifty ANA member companies participated in study. Results show that the war on ad fraud is succeeding and measures designed to block fraudulent impressions are working. Economic losses due to bot fraud are expected to total $5.8 billion globally in 2019, but for the first time even more fraud will be stopped than will succeed. The monetary losses, while significant, are an improvement over the $6.5 billion reported in the previous study released in 2017. The 11 percent decline in two years is particularly noteworthy considering that digital ad spending increased by 25 percent between 2017 and 2019. The report includes a number of recommendations for marketers.

How ANA Members Are Using Influencer Marketing
The term influencer marketing was cited from eMarketer and defined as "marketing that identifies and activates individuals who can sway the brand preferences, buying decisions, and loyalty of the broader population using their own opinions, beliefs, and/or marketing channels. The ANA released new research in April 2018 on how ANA members are using influencer marketing, which revealed that 75 percent of member companies currently employ the discipline and of those respondents not currently using influencer marketing, 27 percent indicated they plan to do so in the next 12 months. 

The State of Programmatic Media Buying
Programmatic media buying has been a rising trend in the marketing industry over the last few years, and 2017 was no exception. Research conducted by the ANA shows that 85 percent of our members are now conducting programmatic initiatives, either in-house or with an agency. One of our most significant findings is that more than a third of our respondents (35 percent) are relying on their in-house media buying capabilities and as a result have reduced the role of external agencies that previously performed the same function. The 35 percent figure marked a notable increase from a 2016 ANA/Forrester report that found only 14 percent of ANA marketers were reducing the role of their external agency as a result of in-house expansion.

Programmatic: Seeing Through the Financial Fog
With the rapid adoption of programmatic media, the supply chain has quickly become complicated — with agencies, trading desks, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, data management platforms, exchanges, and publishers. To many, the result is a financial "fog." ANA, ACA (Association of Canadian Advertisers), AD/FIN Solutions, and Ebiquity PLC commissioned a study that provides practical solutions to help advertisers take greater control of their programmatic investments and to investigate the costs and economics of the programmatic ecosystem.

ANA Members on Walled Gardens: Overwhelming Support for Independent Audits by MRC
Facebook and YouTube have announced that they would break down their "walled gardens" and allow independent audits by the Media Rating Council. In an era of concerns about transparency in the advertising supply chain, these are very positive developments. The ANA calls on other large digital enterprises which have not yet undergone (or announced support for) such independent audits to embrace transparency and "break down their walled gardens" by allowing independent audits by the Media Rating Council.

E-commerce Insights
This research provides a baseline understanding of the prevalence of e-commerce efforts by the overall ANA member community and the organizational structures in place to support them.

Sourced Traffic: Buyer Beware!
The concept of sourced traffic, or traffic sourcing (any method by which digital media sellers acquire visitors through third parties) is unique to digital advertising. Marketers investing in digital advertising need to understand sourced traffic, the issues associated with it — including lack of transparency and high levels of bot fraud — and the action steps required to safeguard investments and optimize spending.

Programmatic Transforms Digital Media Buying
Programmatic buying remains a huge opportunity as marketers are allocating a greater proportion of their media spend to programmatic while expanding its use well beyond online display to include all media types. While programmatic offers the benefits of targeting and efficiency, it also has many challenges including a lack of transparency and higher levels of fraud. This ANA/Forrester Research survey provides a view on the "current state of programmatic" among the client-side marketing community. (Available to ANA members only.)

Brands Working With Startups
ANA conducted research, "Brands Working With Startups," in conjunction with the CTA (Consumer Technology Association). The purpose was to explore marketers' perceptions, attitudes and behaviors toward engaging the startup community in the marketing and advertising space. Specifically it examines how brands work with startups, approaches to using startups, activities associated with startups, pros and cons of using startups, experience with startups and expectations with startups.

The Critical Need for Accredited Third-Party Measurement for Viewability of Digital Advertising
ANA conducted a member survey on the issue of independent third-party measurement for viewability of digital advertising. Some large digital media owners do not allow third-party measurement vendors to report viewable ad impressions to their clients and instead, rely on internally derived metrics that have not been independently verified. This means marketers must trust the viewability metrics provided by those digital media owners, without any independent verification, to determine if their ads performed as contracted. Key survey findings include (a) an overwhelming 97 percent of marketers believe that the larger digital media owners should allow their inventory to be measured by a third party and (b) 61 percent of respondents would shift their spending elsewhere, if a digital media owner does not provide third-party measurement.

The Connected TV Opportunity
Connected TV refers to when a television is connected to the internet. This includes Smart TVs where the connection is built into the TV, or any IP-connected over-the-top (OTT) device/box such as Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, PlayStation, Roku, or Xbox that brings an array of content apps directly to a TV screen. ANA and BrightLine teamed-up to research how the overall ANA member community is using connected TV/OTT devices. The large majority of total respondents believe connected TV is an opportunity for the television advertising industry, with audience targeting cited as the top benefit.