What's It Take to Get Media Right?

A new study indicates a lack of insight into consumer cross-platform consumption is hindering marketers’ efforts to gauge ROI

By Aaron Peterson    December 20, 2018    

PARTNER CONTENT

According to Kantar's fifth annual "Getting Media Right" study, marketers continue to struggle with measuring marketing performance and return on investment (ROI). In fact, study participants called the struggle the No. 1 strategic marketing challenge they face. The primary reason they cite is a lack of understanding of how consumers interact with the growing array of media channels and platforms and what synergies exist between them.

While some in the industry claim growing confidence in their ability to create integrated campaigns, the level of their success may be relative — if it doesn't resonate with audiences, is it really an effective integrated campaign?

The study, which surveyed 468 global senior marketers representing brands, agencies (media, creative, and full-service), and media/publishing companies, puts a finger on the pulse of the marketing and advertising industry to assess evolving trends and insights.

Here are a few key takeaways from this year's study.

 

Data-Informed Insights Are Still Challenging for Advertisers

An overwhelming 94 percent of marketers in this year's "Getting Media Right" study agree that unlocking insights on integrated efforts requires data integration. However, they feel the industry still lacks confidence in its ability to integrate multiple data sources to find actionable insights. Only 49 percent of advertisers in the study are confident in their organization's ability to use data to unearth insights, and even though a majority of agencies and media/publishers show some confidence, less than 20 percent of either group is very confident in their ability to do something with the information they have access to.

Despite the general lack of confidence in their organizations' ability to use data to inform strategic decision making, 82 percent of marketers in the "Getting Media Right" study indicated they are creating integrated strategies, but that's not necessarily translating for consumers. In fact, in Kantar's January 2018 "AdReaction: The Art of Integration" study, which documented consumers' perceptions of advertising, only 58 percent of respondents saw campaigns in-market as being integrated across formats and channels.

 

Different Generations of Marketers View Marketing Preparedness Differently

Millennial marketers (those born between 1980 and 1994) who participated in the "Getting Media Right" study indicated consistently higher expectations for what constitutes integrated strategic marketing than their older colleagues.

Millennials have less confidence, however, than their older colleagues in their organizations' media mix and in those organizations' abilities to find the right balance between digital and offline media.

This difference in confidence likely stems from millennials growing up alongside emerging technologies and platforms that inform their perspective on what constitutes a wholly integrated campaign.

 

Marketers Are Desperate for Measurement Tools that Can Fill In the Gaps

Marketers have found their research tools wanting, the "Getting Media Right" study finds. In general, marketers use the tools ranked as having the most gaps less frequently than other tools, but ROI studies are an exception. While marketers don't feel ROI studies are up to par, they are desperate for ways to measure marketing performance.

Finding insights in marketing data relies on pulling together the right information and tools for monitoring and optimizing campaigns, but marketers are struggling to connect the dots when it comes to measuring performance across channels. Seventy-eight percent of marketers agree that it's difficult to assess how well brands perform across channels.

A greater percentage (84 percent) indicate the struggle with measuring digital media involves digital blind spots, including the walled gardens that surround the data generated inside social media platforms. While those blind spots don't prevent marketers from making assessments of their digital channels, they do make it difficult to create an overall view of a brand's digital presence.

A lack of consistent measurement also plagues the marketing industry, the study found. The primary blocker of holistic measurement and optimization is a lack of consistency in the metrics used to evaluate both in and across channels and platforms. For example, while TV measurement is still dominated by reach and frequency and brand effectiveness, online and mobile measurement rely more heavily on ROI studies. In an ideal program, a measurement framework would be consistent.

The lack of adequate tools capable of creating a holistic picture continues to frustrate the task of measuring one's strategy, optimizing performance, and improving ROI.

 

Marketing's Future Is in the Numbers

Not everything the "Getting Media Right" study found was negative. For instance, a majority of marketers (73 percent) say they use data and insights to make media decisions. In fact, the top two factors influencing media allocation have to do with basing decisions on research while the lowest factor involves making decisions based on the channels that upper management happens to trust.

Similarly uplifting, 40 percent of marketers in the millennial generation said they place much more importance on new channels, marketing innovations, and trends than do gen Xers (29 percent) or baby boomers (27 percent) — an indication that a good portion of tomorrow's marketing leaders have a greater proclivity toward experimentation and innovating than maintaining the status quo.

Given these results, there are a number of questions marketers should ask themselves about their organization's program: Are they integrating across media channels and platforms, as well as the overall approach for creative and media? Have they evaluated the tools and insights needed to efficiently improve performance within and across channels and platforms? Are they utilizing research to guide decision-making and determine where best to allocate time and effort? And, are they creating synergies wherever possible?

Honest, thoughtful answers to those questions, with a continued focus on building solutions for full cross-platform measurement, will help to ensure marketers are getting media right.

Aaron Ethan Peterson is the senior director of marketing and insights at Kantar. You can email him at aaron.peterson@kantar.com.