Investment in Media Strategy is a waste ?

I am a media strategist, and this article is not in jest, but a serious view of the utility of media strategy to drive brands. I will demonstrate this with the use of some media metrics that are often used in the media investment domain.

We often look at the A:S Ratios of Brands within and across categories to arrive at an A:S benchmark which we can use to recommend a starting media budget. Of course! budgeting is a much more complicated subject and far more needs to be done to recommend a media budget; but, this method gives a good reference point. 

Typically, stable FMCG categories with multiple competitive brands have a A:S ratio around 10, ie 10% of the sales revenue for the brand is invested in working media.

Categories with smaller number of competitive brands or categories with dominant brands or categories that are very low involvement are known to have A:S ratios even below 5%. Practically, the brands barely need advertising to survive (Survive is the key-word here).

On the other hand, for brands are in the early stage of life or brands in high involvement categories or in nascent categories - the A:S ratios can be as high as 50% or even higher than 100%. These are not rules, and we need to calculate the A:S value for the specific brand and competitive brands under discussion.

So, we use A:S as a metric that guides budgeting – but, clearly, A:S indicates the importance of  media for the category/ brand. 

Now, lets look at another indicator that we often get out of attribution analytics or more popularly known as Market-Mix-Modelling. As an output of this model, we get the percentage attribution of sales to media. Which means that we estimate - of the total sales what would be the loss in sales if we had not spent on media. Typically, this figure across categories hovers around 10%. Base, Distribution, Pricing, Consumer/ Trade Promotions usually, total up to over 80% or more of the impact on sales. Again, the key takeout is that the % media attribution indicates the importance of media for the category/ brand and is typically around 10% but, needs to be estimated for each brand specifically. 

Though, A:S and % media attribution both vary across brands - to simplify, lets say that media constitutes about 10% of the sales revenue and media contributes to about 10% of the sales. The important part here for the discussion is that the ratio of % media attribution and A:S is 1.0. Lets call this ratio as the Media Utility Ratio (MUR).

                                 MUR = (% sales attribution to media investments)/(A:S %)

So, if we do not deploy media we will lose 10% of sales revenue. But, since media cost is also 10% of the sales, we save 10% of the sales revenue. Hence, we don’t really lose anything if we do not deploy media.

Please note, here we are talking about the short-term impact of the media investments. Also, this above argument will change as per the actual values of A:S and % media attribution for any brand in discussion. 

If the A:S is lower than % media attribution – then, the Media Utility Ratio is greater than 1.0 and the money saved by deploying media causes a far greater loss in sales revenue; hence, MUR > 1 makes a case in favour of the utility of media investments. 

On the other hand, if A:S is greater than % media attribution, then the MUR is less than 1.0 and one needs to question why we should spend in media at all or investigate the nature of media investments. 

As a marketer we need to know the above metrics so that the investment in media is a considered decision and not a ritual. Also, these metrics should be estimated using robust analytics as simple volumetrics, correlations, conversion percentages, etc can give very misleading results.

Now, lets assume that with or without specific knowledge of the above, the marketer does decide to invest in media. Again, for the sake of simplicity lets say, that the current MUR is 1.0. Now, if we invest wisely in media – we may increase the ROI of media and hence the MUR will increase from say, 1 to 1.2 and the inverse will happen if we do not spend wisely.

The below illustrations, show the implications of the values of A:S, % media attribution and MUR.

To improve the Media Utility Ratio, we have multiple avenues:

• Modulate Investment Levels: Check if we are investing at the right levels using the sales response curves. Maybe, if we just increased or decreased the investment levels we may find a point where the MUR is better. We can derive the sales response curve though market-mix modelling. 
• Improve Pricing: Continue to invest in the same manner but reduce the cost of media (the denominator) thus improving the MUR. Here, we improve the pricing or improve on implementation so that we get the best inventory for maximum viewership/ impressions/ etc. This is a very popular approach as it is immediate, direct and tangible. The impact of this is certain but, it will bring in only a small incremental change to the MUR. Do not expect miracles with this approach.
• Strengthen Strategy: Improve the effectiveness of media so that the % media contribution for the same spend improves. This requires one to look at targeting, choice of media/ platforms, manner of usage of each platform, optimization of budget across platforms, monitoring last-mile or intermediate business metrics and optimization campaign to improve effectiveness. If one is able to do this well, the increase in MUR can be exponential. This sounds good but, is not easy nor is very evident and hence, needs bold decisions.

But, coming back to the point we started with, here is the argument against investing in media strategy:

• Media only contribute 10% to the sales or as discussed may be less or more for different brands. You need to think what if the media contribution is higher? 
• One may not be implementing media in the best possible way, but, how wrong could one be. After all, the decision on media investments are joint decision by the best minds in the company even though not taken with formal objectivity. So, if we don’t do media well say the 10% will come down to say, a 7% ? Is that too much to worry about. Especially, when it is not even easily deduced.
• And, whatever one is doing today in media today – if one just improves the pricing, that will anyways impact profitability positively. Will this not be enough to make-up for whatever one may be losing by not doing media in the optimal way.
• So, why bother about media strategy. And, not that one does not do strategy. – lets just not bother about formal media strategy such as investing in as much research, analytics or media strategy people/ tools, etc all of which are expenditure items. 

I am not proposing that one should not invest in advertising. It helps build awareness, brand credentials and imagery. Media is often used to address specific barriers that impact brand choice at different stages of the consumer journey. Media contributes to both the short-term and the long-term effect on sales. The investment in advertising has many considerations beyond just the A:S and % sales attribution to media. 

So, invest in media but, it may not be worth the while to invest too much in media strategy – it’s a gamble anyways 😁. 

Some caveats:

• If the above argument is too simplistic for some media pundits, please pardon the leap taken. The idea is to trigger readers to re-think the importance of media strategy and not enumerate the detailed aspects. 
• If anyone wants to evaluate their current media investments basis the above metrics, I will be glad to assist.
• Despite the above argument, if you still feel that you would want to invest in media strategy – I will be delighted to participate as that’s what puts bread on my table 🙏. 
• If anyone agrees with the title statement entirely - I have nothing to say 😑.
• Special note to my employers – the above is fiction. Media strategy is very important. Pl continue to invest in the strategy resources (including me 👍 ). 
• This article is my personal point-of-view and does not represent the views of my organization.

Are you doing Digital Media in the Traditional Media Way?

We all, have seen digital grow in this world. Some of us (the grey-haired or no-hair ones) saw its initiation and the emergence of the whole ecosystem of industries growing around it.. like email, mobile phones and many more. While the younger-gen, though born into the digital world have seen it evolving too. In an India industry forum in the terminal part of the 20th Century - the advertising media spend on digital was estimated as INR 30 Crs - today, the estimate is around INR 30,000 Cr and moving up faster than any other media. But, this article is not about the growth of digital- it is about the way digital is used today in the area of brand communications.

We encounter digital in numerous avenues and manners for advertising - Search, Performance, Banner/ Display Ads and their varied manifestations in every platform, Video Ads, Native Ads, In-App Ads, Rich-Media Banners, EComm Search/ Display, Programmatic, Lock-Screen Ads, OTT In-Stream, Email Marketing, Social.. and many many more. And, there is a huge body of knowledge proliferated by each platform on what this type of advertising means and the best practices of advertising for each of these and more. But, this article is not about the different advertising options in digital media - it is about the way digital is used today in the area of brand communications.

Digital media in brand communication was supposed to bring in a change. There are many other changes but, these are the relevant ones to discuss here. 

- Addressability v/s No-Idea who is seeing the TV Ad

- 2-Way Communication/ Conversation v/s No-Idea what consumer feels/ says after seeing the TV Ad

- Direct Track-ability of Consumer Action v/s No-Idea what consumer does after seeing the TV Ad

- Link-ability of exposure on different media v/s No-Idea what other exposure the consumer gets after seeing the TV Ad 

- Conclusive Attribution v/s No-Idea what consumer buys after seeing the TV Ad

No wonder, the broadcast approach has been termed as the Spray & Pray approach and a huge amount of measurement & analytics was required to arrive at some attributed ROI of the traditional media investments.  

So, if we are not using any or some of the attributes of digital advertising - we would just be using digital media in the traditional way - just another screen to drive exposures without getting all the benefit of shifting to digital. And, if so then should that digital advertising approach not be called Traditional? Its not the media that is Traditional but, the manner of its usage is Traditional.

Lets look at where we are on each of the elements - and the POV below is about what is generally seen does and not talk of those who are doing better. And, this is not a judgement on anyone - but, a call to all to evaluate where each one is on the above parameters.

Addressability: Technically, the manner of deployment is addressable as the servers deliver the ads to a specified "machine ID" - now we know our ad was delivered; measure of viewability are helping understand views better; we are using data on delivery/ viewability to re-market; we know whether anyone clicked on the ad.  But, how much do we really know about who we are addressing. Some advertisers are just interested in reach (traditional model) and are not bothered about the addressability (its just a by-product) or viewabilty. While, there is a lot of talk of shoppable-advertising, with the sub-1% level of CTRs that we feel proud about - one must really question the approach.

- 2-Way Communication/ Conversation: Yes, Digital has given a voice to the consumer. Publishing is no longer the privilege of only a few (this blog is a testament to that). Social media has become the greatest connector and influencer. Social posts and chat-bots and a lot is being created for consumer conversations. But, how much of the ad-money do we really spend on 'conversations' while brand-speak is still the norm.

- Direct Track-ability of Consumer Action: Like we discussed above, the CTRs for any communication are typically sub-1% and the actions if any, thereafter for this small group are also usually un-trackable. Of Course! GDPR is there but the idea is to understand the consumer response - and again other than complicated analytics there is no way to understand what, the consumer does. 

- Link-ability of exposure on different media: Walled-Gardens, supposedly driven by concerns of privacy are keeping all (recordable) info to themselves and the advertisers have rarely sufficient insight into how the dots connect across media or platforms. The best understanding is at the level of aggregates which has been the traditional way. Technically, lot can be done and at a platform level, each platform is creating capabilities to allow a better understanding but, connecting the dots is still quite an adventure. First-Party Data at advertisers end has started but, still far from adequate and even that does not solve for the issues opacity of the walled-gardens.   

- Conclusive Attribution: Sales Attribution is the holy grail and this is where it is still very muddy. There are constant debates on what did digital achieve. Decade of last-mile attribution has worked well for the digital platforms as mass-ignorance and nudges from platforms moved monies to digital. Digital spends at times have been vanity-spends. I am not at all taking away from the advantage that digital brings to the party but, we need to be congnizant of what "business" did it really drive. We still dont know. 

While, digital is evolving everyday and so, is the science on how to use digital - but, there is still a lot to be done here. While, Short-term and platform-level measures that digital provides are good to have/ critical to manage deployment but, we need to understand their relationships to brand-measures with more clarity and conclusivity. Just being on digital is not enough, as you can see from the discussion above, there is a lot of investment required beyond placing the ads to enable the advantages of digital. There is a change required in what we expect from digital - whether, we are are looking for the listed digital benefits or are we happy with just the traditional deliverable of exposure. 

Digital media is extremely powerful. We need to use digital for the ability to provide many of the above advantages - else we can always use the digital screen as another "TV screen" and keep doing Spray & Pray. We would be using Digital Media in the Traditional Media Way.

Recipe for a Media Plan

Of the things that I am passionate about - "media" is what I do professionally and "cooking" is another which I dabble in occasionally at home. There are a few more vocations that excite me but, today I am limiting the discussion to drawing some parallels between media and cooking :-).Lets talk a bit about the art of cooking first!!

The art of cooking is traditionally classified into different Cuisines which have evolved over generations. Each cuisine has its characteristic methods, cooking utensils/ tools, there are some characteristic ingredients and also a distinctive serving style. Then, there are different Chefs, each having their own signature style inspired from various cuisines; some play on dishes within a genre while some experiment across genres. The ingredients are universal and barring some limitations are available across borders to anyone who would want any ingredient. 

The success of a dish rests in the hands of the Chefs who have acute Knowledge of the cuisines, tools, ingredients and the cooking process or the recipe. They have trained over years and acquired Skills to craft the imagined dish using the tools/ ingredients. The dish to be cooked can only be imagined well if the Chef has a full appreciation of the wants and desires of the "Customers" to whom the dish is to be served. And finally, its the "Setting & Service" that makes the Experience worthwhile for the Customers.

The dish served is just not a "collection" of ingredients but ingredients - each treated in a specific manner; each ingredient fused into the dish at a different stage of the cooking process in a specific way that does best for the dish. A dish is only as good as the process of making the dish has been. Its the recipe that makes all the difference. It is the recipe that is guarded by chefs as that is proprietary.

It is the same for media planning too.

The ingredients for media planing - the creatives and the touch-points across media, are available for all to buy; but, what one does with these ingredients is the difference that makes a campaign successful or not. It is the process of making a plan that determines how good a plan is; it is the recipe of the plan that is the most important part of media planning.

Each Media agency has an underlying  philosophy that drives their thinking  and  that differentiates one agency from another. This philosophy gives a distinctive style to each agency just as each Cuisine has a distinctive style.

Each Agency has inherent knowledge and tools that are shared across the network and all planners are trained to adopt skills so that they can use this knowledge and tools proficiently in doing their daily business.

And, for using the knowledge and tools in the best way, the planners need to have a very sharp understanding of the ingredients (media touchpoints) and the customers taste (target group). 

So, a planner will be a Master-Planner only if, working on specific categories/ customers/ markets each planner develops ones own style of media planing within the recommended philosophy/ process of the media agency. 

Needless to say, a Master-Planner will always dish out media that makes a difference to the business of the clients.

Clients need to stop evaluating the ingredients of a media plan and start appreciating the recipe, knowledge, tools and skill set of the team that eventually make a plan successful. Yes, we do have to have an eye on the right side of the Menu, in view of our wallet but, the order has to be on the basis of which dish is the best.

Planning for the Multi-Screen Consumer

I joined the media industry in 2002, at a time when the TV screen was the mightiest. Cinema in India was at the early stages of evolution from low quality single-screens to the experience-rich multiplex phenomena targeting the affluent cinema-goers. Internet bandwidth was limited and multi-media experiences were a challenge on desktops and laptops. Mobile phones were in their infancy, as far as video was concerned. Tablets were non-existent. The Television was the king of screens and it was the medium of choice for the brand video message more popularly known as the TVC.

More than a decade has passed and the world has now changed. While, Television still continues to be the most wide-spread video screen but, in certain consumer segments its dominance is challenged by the other screens in the life of the consumers.

Cinema, Laptops, Tablets, Smartphones - all are pervasive enough with a certain skew towards the affluent, male, young, metro consumers. For these consumers their screen time is well spread between all these screens.

There is a continuing debate on the penetration and the time-spent of the consumers on these screens as viewed from different data sources but, their proliferation and the increasing share of time is undeniable.

The Cinema screen is a public screen; the Television is still a family screen though multiple TV sets at homes and digitization is tending it towards a more personal screen; Laptops/ Tablets/ Smartphones are clearly in the individual zone.The different nature of the screens makes them suitable for different content and experiences and hence, different levels of engagements with the consumers from the advertising perspective.

Advertising is fast adapting to this change in the media consumption behaviour of consumers. The primary use of digital media in advertising is around search and banner/ display advertising exploiting the power of digital to enable context. Though, not much share of wallet but, enough is also being done in engagement of the consumers using various digital and social platforms. However, Television and the TVC still rule.

It is understandable for brands seeking mass audiences beyond the digital skewed demographics indicated above but, brands seeking the multi-screen consumers surely need to re-evaluate their approach to disseminating the TVC.

Its not about giving up the use of Television as a medium - it still has a high share of time-spent among all screens but, an optimized mix of the screens is likely to give much better cost per reach that just using Television.

There are a few arguments prevalent in the industry on this matter - the issue of the measurability of the digital screens and the veracity of the numbers available; the issue of the quality of exposure of the TVC on screens other than Television; and the final issue of the relative cost of exposure across different screens. All these arguments have reasonable answers for any serious investigator though many advertisers are still living in denial and continue to spend the advertising dollars on television without much deliberation.

The quality of exposure on Television itself is a mystery. However, advertisers have continued to spends millions despite the ambiguity. For those who really want an answer, the quality debate can easily be settled by some structured experiments. There are enough cases of success of internet video  and there is enough research availiable on the ROI of digital advertising. 

The question of  measurability is a more pertinent question as campaigns have to be continuously monitored and evaluated on deliveries and performance. We do have an issue of lack of comparable metrics across screens and the recently raging issue of false impressions on digital. But, for brands whose consumers spend most of the day on the computers and smartphones, these obstacles to arriving at a measure are surmountable. Media Agencies have invested in proprietary research and tools which allow overlaying the viewership data obtained from digital publishers with statistically derived models to enable a fair comparison with television exposures. An advertiser with an agency without such research and tools should be looking for a new one at the earliest.

Finally, the matter of pricing which, often dominates most media investment decisions. Hearsay, is that TV is the cheapest medium and digital is very expensive. I guess, that is what all media pricing reports indicate as most of such industry reports calculate numbers at the overall market/ audience level. At the least, each advertiser must do an evaluation on pricing for their specific brand target groups for their core markets and maybe, there is a surprise waiting for some. Pricing should not be looked at in the absolute as the cost per GRP or cost per exposure but, as the cost required to deliver the operating levels planned for a campaign. Advertisers will realize that often a mix of screens delivers a better overall cost of a plan than when using only a single media.

Its a new world and we need to keep re-evaluating best practices as consumers evolve. Needless to say, as we extend the TVC to multiple screens, there is also a re-learning required in creating TVCs that are suited for different screens. While, the above comparison advocated is just on the exposure-metrics - digital screens enable a lot more that just the exposure of the TVC and the advertisers would be benefited most if they exploit the strengths of each medium - beyond exposure.

The challenges in delivering the TVC to the desired audiences on digital will remain as deployment models are either not discriminating between audiences or are structured more for behavioural/ contextual targeting rather than demographic targeting as in Television. It remains to be seen which way the tide flows - whether Digital will evolve to enable demographic targeting or TV will get advanced enough soon to enable behavioural mapping of consumers. 

Overall, for advertising there are challenging years ahead as the consumers relationship with screens will be dynamic but, multi-screen advertising is certainly here to stay. Whether, advertising placement will remain an involved operation or will programmatic placements rule the future - the role of multiple screens will only increase.

The sooner advertisers re-evaluate their options and develop dynamic investment models - the better for the efficiency of their media investments.

The Power of Context of TV GRPs

Advertising on Television comes naturally to every advertiser. It must be a rare advertiser who has the money to do a TVC but doesn't. In this note though, I am not debating the merits or de-merits of TV advertising. I want to focus on those who do decide to advertise on TV - and how do they thereafter use the Television medium.

Now, there are various ways of interacting with target consumers on television, But, I am not going to discuss the possibilities and the pros and cons of the options. We will  just talk about the most widely used method  - of airing the Brand TVC in the commercial break. I believe that over 95% of the monies spent on TV advertising are on the TVC so, that is what we should try to unravel.

It starts with a client brief for airing the TVC and all sorts of action start at the media agency end to propose the operating levels, edits to be used, phasing of the edits, weeks on air, genre structure, etc etc. While, all of the above decisions have a rationale and a process - all science here is based on the aggregation of thousands of TVC exposures. 

The TV Spot
Each insertion of the TVC is termed as a "spot". Each spot has views, termed as "impressions". The number of impressions depend on the number of people watching that channel at that point of time. These impressions expressed as a percentage of the total size of the target group are termed as the "rating or TVR" of the spot (simplistic view). So, there are multiple spots in a campaign, each resulting into impressions and delivering some TVRs and the sum total of these TVRs are what we call the GRPs (Gross Rating Points). As these GRPs accumulate over the campaign period, depending on the unique number of people who have seen the TVC and how many times each has seen the TVC, we derive the reach and frequency of the campaign. The rate at which a campaign reaches new people gives us what we call the reach build-up curve for the campaign.   

You see that in all of the measures above, there is no qualitative value attached to an exposure. Each exposure is like a grain of sand - each one same as the other. And, that is what I think needs to be fundamentally understood and realized before we start debating on the operating levels of any campaign.

The Right GRP
And, this is where the dilemma lies as there are different schools of thought about this. On the one hand, is the belief that each exposure is the same while, on the other hand the difference of each exposure is appreciated. 

For those who believe in the former, life is easy and it is all simple arithmetic to build a campaign - the objective often being to get the maximum GRPs or Reach@Frequency in the minimum cost. They are ignore to the nature of the GRPs as long as the aggregate of the GRPs delivers to them their campaign operating levels. In achieving the cheapest - their is a conscious disregard to an extent to spillovers, extent of over/under exposures, market intricacies, etc.

If we look at the school of thought that recognizes the difference in the GRPs - their life is certainly more complex.  The value delivered by each exposure depends on various dimensions of the exposure, such as the nature of programming, time of day, day of week, etc. These dimensions provide what we call "Context" for the exposure.

Understanding Context
The deliverable that we want from a TVC exposure is that it should be seen by the desired people and that these people should understand the messaging. So, the selection of the context should be based on whether it targets the right kind of people required for the brand in the right state of mind. The premise being that if the viewers are engaged in the context, they will also be engaged in the advertising and hence the probability for them to notice the TVC and to understand the TVC will be higher as against an exposure in a context which is not of high interest to them. Just like "a picture is worth a thousand words" - the right context is worth a whole lot of non-contextual GRPs.

Of course! there is always the pricing argument as most often than not, getting the right context is a compromise between cost, reach and quality.

The Measurement Challenge
But, all such discussions are limited by the nature of the syndicated TV measurement study which only provides data on the demographic audience so, one really does not know the equation between cost, reach and quality for the right brand audience. So, for an advertiser to have the right media plan one has to resort to planning metrics beyond what are provided by the syndicated TV measurement system.

The current TV system never advocated absolute reliance on its metrics for constructing the TV plan. All it provides are measures that are an aid to creating and measuring the TV plan deliveries, and on limited dimensions. These dimensions are adequate for trading of TV GRPs as the currency. However, it would be an injustice to media planing to rely just on this data for arriving at the construct of the plan.

Thus, the plan is only as good as the logic for its construct. And, once we have the construct one needs to translate this construct into a plan based on the limited dimensions available in the TV planning system. While, many attempt to do this but, in an effort to optimize investments in the TV planning system they often loose the construct of the media plan.

To illustrate - do we optimize on reach for the demographic audience as available in the measurement system or do we build in a factor of the reach among the real brand audience? Do we evaluate the efficiency of the plan on the cost per rating in the demographic audience or the cost per rating in the desired audience?  

Optimizing the Construct
The plan optimization needs to go beyond the TV measurement system to draw a balance between - total plan GRPs, total cost of the plan, cost per desired audience (not just the demographic audience) of the plan, reach and reach build-up in the desired audience, the engagement score of the plan, spillover in terms of audience & over-exposure, etc.

Unless, we build beyond the demographic measurement, we may be very happy with the plan deliveries but, what the campaign delivers for business is quite another matter - often not measured, if measured not calibrated and if calibrated, often based on the same belief of sameness of GRPs. Those who have been able to unravel the power of the context of TV GRPs are the ones who will get the most out of TV advertising.

The rest will keep rolling the drum without achieving the real objectives of the brand.. at least not in the most efficient way.

Are Clients really serious about Media ROI?

I have spent more than a decade now in the media industry and as a media agency representative, I have had the opportunity to work with scores of clients who invest crores of rupees on advertising. And, during this journey "Media ROI" has always been an item that has been discussed again and again.

Media ROI management is an exact science and there is a huge bank of knowledge that exists in academia on the subject. Globally, extensive work has been done by leading brands and agencies on establishing the ROI of media. However, there is very limited applied work that is available with any advertiser or agency in India to showcase Media ROI in action.

"Accountability" is the buzzword and the whole industry keeps talking of the need for media agencies to become accountable for the media investments being recommended for the clients. And, yes that is the right direction for the industry to move in. But, driving accountability requires an ecosystem that encourages this change. Unfortunately, I do not think any of the stakeholders in media are taking any significant or concrete steps to move in this direction.

Media ROI Management first of all requires establishing a relationship between the media investments and tangible business results; and, at the second level there is a need for attribution of the business results to various elements of the media mix thus deriving the ROI of each element of a campaign. However, these apparently simple steps are extremely challenging to execute in reality today and all the constituents of the media ecosystem (Clients, Agencies & Media Owners) are responsible for this situation. However, I am limiting this note only to the role that the Agencies and Clients have to play and shall deliberate on the Media Owners part at another time.

No, I am not shying away from the responsibility that the agencies have. Of course! the ultimate onus of establishing the Media ROI is on the media agencies as it is their business which is at stake but, they cant do it on their own. Over the years the media agencies have invested considerably in developing methods and tools and built statistical capabilities to be ROI-Ready.

But, there are certain responsibilities that have to be taken up by the advertisers to quantify Media ROI and there are three primary requirements that the advertisers need to provide towards this mission.  

First, is having a clarity on what is the measure that a particular campaign needs to drive. Of Course! revenue, profit margin, increased sales and market share are the final goals but, these are the financial goals which are generic to every business. A deeper investigation into the brand challenge is required to identify the specific objective that the campaign must deliver on. These specific objectives could be increasing the consumer base or driving higher per capita consumption, etc. Going a step further, advertisers need to have a diagnosis of what are the barriers to these objectives being achieved. 

The second requirement from the advertisers is to setup a system to measure and record the state of the brand on the measures referred to above, on a continuous basis. Yes, there are some advertisers who are quite evolved in this but, most others have still a long way to go.  There are clients that very generously invest in measuring market sales (for self and competitors) using syndicated retail audits and/ or setting up consumer panels. Also, some advertisers invest in Usage & Attitude Studies and Awareness Tracking studies which deliver a lot of the mind measures required to understand the brand challenges. 

The third and the last requirement is for the advertisers to record all the market interventions and changes in the marketing mix in a systemic manner (for self, and if possible for competition) as this data is very vital input to drawing inferences related to the attribution of cause of the movements in the state of the brand in the market. 

The media agencies have data and information that is limited to the media research available in the industry and all data beyond this has to be provided by the advertiser. With the growth of digital new data sources such as web-traffic, search volume data, volume of brand mentions, etc are becoming available which can also be accessed by the media agencies, but as of now that data has its limitations. It is also very critical that there be an integrated approach to develop this data ecosystem such that all these data are aligned to each other and can be used seamlessly for any further analysis. 

While crores get spent on advertising, there is an apparent resistance to make investments to setup the above mentioned systems even though these investments would be a very minute percentage of the advertising budgets. There is often an expectation from some clients that these investments should be borne by the agencies. But, looking at the media agency business model it is very unlikely that the agencies would ever be able to make these client specific investments. 

So, if Media ROI really matters to clients and they are serious that it should be an integral part of the evaluation of the performance of media, then that expectation has to be backed by these investments and this data should be seamlessly and continuously shared with the agencies. Of Course! there will never be perfect information and ultimately the agencies will work with what is finally available. Even today, work on establishing a relationship between media investments and business results continues across clients; but, with adequate data systems such work can become an integral part of the planning process.

And, lastly Clients need to realize that Media ROI management is a resource-intensive occupation and cannot come as part of the current client-agency remuneration arrangements.

I hope that all constituents will make due efforts to evolve and in the near future continuous measurement of Media ROI will be a feasible reality leading to higher investment efficiency and higher profitability for the Clients.

TAM to BARC - Evolution in Progress!!

As I sat through the BARC presentation today when the new TV measurement system was revealed to the industry; it was a very happy feeling. It was a proud moment to be witness to such a significant step forward in the evolution of the media industry in India. The media industry has evolved extensively over the past decade to respond to the changes happening in the media consumption behaviour of the Indian consumer. 

Over the years, technological development in products has given us so many new and improved media formats which we can see in print, radio, television and most visibly in digital media. The advent of HD TV, DTH, IPTV, Hi-tech Print Technology, FM Radio, Mobiles, Smartphones, Tablets, Broadband, Interactive Outdoor and many many more has then led to a revolution in Content for these new formats. The media houses brought in new content, expanded across formats and improvised business models thus challenging the existing norms of advertising and media planning. 

Since then, Communication Planning too has been totally revamped in agencies and is far more elaborate encompassing the characteristics of the consumer, the brand and the intricacies of media with accountability at its core.

At the final frontier of this evolution is where the media measurement systems need to change to respond to all the changes above and that is what we are seeing happen now. The IRS has been renewed and now the TV measurement system is also taking on a new avatar. This will lead to further development of the craft  of media strategy, planing and trading and build increasing value in the media ecosystem.

The curtain-raiser that we witnessed today is not just about one research over another but, has to be seen in a far more broader sense. TAM was the messiah at one point of time and it has served the industry well but, as we discussed above, the media landscape has changed and TAM has probably not responded well enough to these changes and so has had to make way for BARC.

Of Course! there are going to be many schools of thought on the ratings that BARC delivers. TAM had its limitations and while BARC TV ratings are set to improve on these limitations; BARC ratings will have its own set of challenges and limitations too. Some will swear by the ratings while, some will contest them; some will revel in the new software while, some will want for the comfort of the old system; some will derive new learning from the fresh data while, some will get caught in its apparent flaws... but, with time all will find their own method to embed this new system into their business practices and move on. 

I will not evaluate the impact BARC will have on the industry on the basis of the TV ratings that it will deliver now or in the near future but on the design of BARC and on the future potential of BARC that its design empowers.

The construct of the BARC research is revolutionary. The distributed ownership; the federal approach to control of the system; the conjunction of multiple superlative services and technologies; the scope for scalability required for India and most importantly the potential to grow into a multi-media multi-platform system are the dimensions of BARC that ensure its long-term success.

The fact that BARC is based on the new NCCS system is great but, that is just a matter of its panel design. What makes BARC exemplary is its future-readiness which is a crucial need-gap in the media industry. I will dwell a little more on this aspect that will allow BARC to be far more responsive to the changing media landscape in the future.

The water-marking technology though a simple technique (theoretically) is inherent to the algorithm that the BARC system uses. I am not aware of the exact scope of the code embedded in the current water-mark but, it has the potential of building in  not only the Channel ID but far more information related to each element of the content being telecast such as the program ID, the ID of the TVC and much more. Water-Marking content with such ID codes can enable a totally automated measurement system for every element being telecast. 

Once this ID is embedded in the content then irrespective of when or on what media or format the content is played this code can be identified and hence can make BARC agnostic to the media and the format. This gives BARC the potential to provide measurement of the content on any kind of TV input signal and any digital device too -  such as Laptops, Tablets, Phones, etc. 

Of course! the challenge will be of setting up systems and regulations to ensure water-marking of content beyond TV Channels and of setting up a panel of (so called) meters for media formats other than Television. These two challenges are political as well as that of research design. Difficult but do-able. As this happens, we will realize that BARC should not be called only as a TV Measurement System but, a Universal Measurement System for audio-visual content. 

But, yes.. while, it was a good feeling seeing the BARC TV Research and realizing the new era in media measurement that it is heralding; I do realize that the next few months are going to be a period of intense work to redefine the TV Planning process and benchmarks. We will have to burn a lot of midnight oil as we transition from one system to another making decisions on crores of investments for our brands.

The key learning that is reiterated as we look at the TV research changing hands is that "Evolution is not a Choice" and if we dont evolve fast enough.....!!

To know more about BARC and its implications on media planning go on to the BARC website http://www.barcindia.co.in or send in your queries to me at premjeetsodhi@gmail.com.