Embedding Brand-Good into Media Plans

This is not a critique nor a judgement on any one. It is only some loud thinking on how the advertising/ media industry could become more effective in fulfilling their ultimate objective of doing good for their client brand.

Of course! there are hundreds of dimensions to the above thought but, in this article today I am only zooming in on "Focus on the Brand" in the context of traditional media planning.

A media plan is a optimistic mix of advertising space on various media/ vehicles to expose the provided creative to the desired (usually, demographically defined) target audience made with the primary objective of getting the mix at the cheapest.

As, those in the industry read through - it may be very easy to say we are not like that or we don't do this, etc but, the tougher and right thing would be to get out of denial mode and look to further improvement.

I am not saying, at all that the media plans today are not delivering on brand-good but, the point is are they delivering enough and can this be optimized further. Now, don't take the word "optimized" which I just used and say that for our plan we have already used an optimizer. The said optimizer is for arriving at the cheapest way to deliver the most exposure while, again I am talking of optimizing brand-good.

All media planners out there are doing a fabulous job delivering exposure. They are stuck between the advertiser/client who have their own visions of what their plan should be like (often based on past experience with as much subjectivity as exists in marketing) and most importantly at what cost that vision should be delivered and with the Media House/ Auditor/ Agency Seniors on the other side bringing in all kinds of "expectations" to vitiate the ideal planning process. The job of media planning for the person at the front becomes more of managing expectations rather than of delivering the right media plan. In such a scenario, it is often very likely that the media planner does not embed enough of the brand-good into the plan since he is playing the balancing act between the various actors sitting around the desk to approve the media plan.

Making a media plan is a process and in the process the Brand-Good has to form an important element. We have to make sure that during every stage of the planning process there is a barometer which checks if the brand-good has been maintained from the point we started making the plan right through to the end. And, this is all possible. The only thing that vitiates it is the distraction by various other short-sighted expectations some justified/ some totally unreasonable.

While, one - as a media planner can keep saying that it is all these distractions that spoil a media plan; it is the responsibility of media planners to first put their house in order. Before, one starts making a media plan how much thought is given to what is the brand-good that we are trying to deliver other than brand exposure? How much consideration is given to brand-good in selecting various elements of the plan or do we just choose media vehicles basis the exposure-cost analysis? Once when a plan is made does one really put a metric to the amount of brand-good that has been embedded into the plan? Finally, after the execution of the plan how much analytics is done to assess the brand-good delivered?

Here, I want to introduce the concept of Brand-Fidelity of media plans. A media plan that has low brand fidelity would have minimal or no brand-good embedded within it; while a media plan with high brand-fidelity would be totally focussed on delivering what the brand intended to achieve through the media plan.

Now, what is the brand-good that we need to deliver and how do we quantify and measure it are further challenges but, not impossibles to derive. A focused team, intent on building higg-fidelity media plans will surely find means and ways to idetntify, embedd and measure brand-good.

This is an urge to the industry to re-invent media planning in a way that at the end we have an applause and not questions about the relevance of advertising, Focus on Brand-Good in a way that cant be compromised for any other expectation.

Hindi Hinterland - The New Reality

[Published by MXM India in May 2012]

The change in society is expressed in three key dimensions which are Attitude, Affluence and Ambience. Of course, there is certainly an interaction between each of these as they are not independent of each other. And, in the past few years each of these have significantly changed for the Hindi Hinterland.

The Ambience, which is the infrastructure around, has made progress by leaps and bounds. One can always say that there is a lot to be done for amenities like roads, electricity, healthcare, communication, education, governance, commerce, but all these areas have seen improvement. Government initiatives as well as private enterprise have contributed to this change.

Affluence is on the rise. The average monthly household income has improved (as measured by the IRS database). The access to durables has improved and in most categories not only does this market constitute a large share of sales but is also a high growth market for the future. Automobiles, Entertainment Electronics, Household & Kitchen Durables are all expanding into these markets. For FMCGs, these markets were always an important geography, though only for the essentials, but now the market is also growing for the premium segments. Services, which focused only on metros a decade ago, are all vying for the masses in the Hindi Hinterland today.

The change in Attitude of the consumers is of utmost importance. Increased urbanization, higher exposure to urban lifestyles and high aspirations are fuelling consumer demand. The attitude towards social equality, gender issues, education, personal lifestyles, technology adoption, and so on are all tending to match up with consumers in the other geographies. For Telecom, the Hindi Hinterland is a gold mine. The growth rates in these markets are enormous and cell phones are changing the very basics of media reach.

Illiteracy has decreased by 15 per cent and 18 per cent in the rural and urban areas respectively in the last 5 years. The readership of publications (mostly dailies) has grown manifold in the last decade and continues to be an area of growth in the future.

Television ownership has grown at a CAGR of 10.3 per cent over the past 5 years and viewership is increasing exponentially. Hindi news channels, Hindi movies and GECs are fast growing; regional content on TV too has seen significant growth. The DTH growth story has started from these markets and now is making its presence felt in the larger cities. Despite, the growth in media reach over the past decade, it is still a challenge to do justice to these markets in the current media context.

Hence, the key challenges are:

•TG Isolation: To manage sufficient reach, most often the largest reach media needs to be utilized and that reaches across target groups. There is, therefore, a lot of spillover resulting in wastage of media monies.

•Geographical Isolation: As soon as one uses the national Hindi media beyond the regional media the spillover into national markets is inevitable.

•Message Localization: Most campaigns use the creative made for large urban markets which has a challenge to connect with the consumer in the Hindi Hinterland.

•Cost per Reach: As local media becomes important for coverage in the market; the comparative cost of reach is a challenge.

Overcoming any of the above challenges is not easy as most of these are issues are related to the structure of the markets and the media industry. However, the following best practices can help the custodians of communication for these markets:

•Do not look at each media in isolation. Use a multi-media approach to target specific market and TG. This will help in controlling spillover.

•Take advantage of localization and extension of campaigns in partnership with the media. Integrate the creative into local contact opportunities and even activation.

•Make extensive use of local representatives to understand the media preferences.

Know Your Customer (KYC)

KYC is a very talked about term theses days amongst most sales oriented organizations. In fact, among some domains (Telecom, Finance, etc) this is actually being enforced by the regulatory authorities. However, this is one aspect that agencies have to take up on a war footing.

No, no.. I dont mean to say that agencies dont know their customer.. it is a bit deeper than that..

It is one thing to know the people who "man" the various stations/ offices but quite another to know the business that they are in. And, that is what I mean that agencies need to understand the business because, it is the business or the brand who is the Customer for the agency.

Yes, no one will admit that they dont understand the business of their Client; but, conversely if I were to ask the Clients if they think that the people at their agency understand their business - the answer may not be a very sweet one. So, lets accept it - we know very little about our clients businesses.

And, this I believe is at the core of the usually publicized commoditization of agency deliverables.

In the absence of suitable knowledge about the business, the communication recommendations from the media as well as the creative agency would be limited to some very superficial idea about how their inputs and efforts would affect the business. The dialogue between the agency and the client is limited to only "media language" and does not graduate to "business talk" that really matters to the client. Unless, the Client appreciates our knowledge and understanding of his business - he/ she wont really give any weightage to any inputs in the realm of strategy.

Doing a campaign is a very transactional thing and we do these by the score - however, strategy is something which is very integral and cannot be done on the basis of the media knowledge only.

But, it is a chicken and egg story. Unless, we understand the business, the client wont involve us in the strategic process and unless we get involved in the strategic process - we wont really be able to understand the business. Anyways, the onus for change is on the agency - unless, the agency is happy just delivering vanilla media campaigns and over a period of time getting more and more marginalized and commoditized.

So, the new mantra of "KYC" has to be taken up by the agencies in earnest and impute the learnings into the process of media solution design. This stance of KYC would need re-orientation of skillsets and resources so that the focus is on the strategic and not just the transactional deliveries.

Lastly, I would say that the ultimate beneficiaries of an agency that understands their business - shall be the clients themselves. Hence, the Clients must encourage this shift and not keep the agency at arms-length when it comes to sharing knowledge and information about their business.

Only, an agency that knows your business can grow your business!!

Stop Over-Simplification of Media

While, the core thought of this article about 'over-simplification' may apply to the overall domain of marketing, but I am using the setting of media planning to construct the view.

Lets, first see what is the task or challenge that the media agencies take up in their business.

Every advertiser expects the media planning agency to deliver performance for its business metrics. That is to say that - once a media plan is executed the brand manager expects sales to happen.

Enough has been said about the increasing complexity of the market, the increasingly unpredictable and demanding consumer and the decreasing strength of brands. In such a scenario, the factors that lead to sales success are many. The classical models of marketing have now been replaced by far more dynamic models and media is only one of the many factors that influence sales. Hence, this is not a simple or easy expectation at all.

Even a little bit of analytics will reveal that media has only got limited leverage to drive sales and this leverage varies for different categories and brands. However, there are other interim metrics leading to sales, such as brand recall, brand perception, brand enquiry, brand interactions, etc for which media can be held accountable for. There are so many marketing models and methods that help understand what a brand needs to deliver in media. None of these methods are simple.

Looking at 'media' in isolation and expecting it to deliver sales is a naive simplification.

Media Planning is an intricate science. It deals with engaging extremely incredulous and volatile consumers to convince them of the merits of one of the score of brands that are available to them and possibly get them to move closer to buying the brand. In short, it deals with the wants and desires of people which can never be a simple subject to address.

However, somewhere along the way in the past agencies have made advertises believe that this complex task can be broken up into two simple steps - (i) design the message and (ii) deliver the message to the desired consumer segment.

Here, I will not comment on designing the message since I have already touched upon that in my earlier post titled "Creative is killing Creativity". Lets look at the inherent simplification that has been cultivated in delivering the message.

The first simplification was to strip each medium of its "qualitative" values and believe that each vehicle in a medium and across mediums can be represented by the measure of only "quantity".

This made it very easy to measure media and trade media. One was only bothered about the count or reach as we call it. Research agencies made a killing setting up mammoth research projects measuring this lowest common denominator across media. Yes, there was a qualitative aspect but that was left to interpretation and application by the media planners. Now, we have the media planing community largely addicted and servile to these quantitative research databases totally oblivious to the qualitative value of the media they recommend. 

The second simplification was to believe that consumer minds can be affected just by managing the volume of this media measure.

The GRP was conceived - which is another simplification of the arithmetic that goes into making a media schedule and this GRP became the volume measure of  voice of the brand. Due to its simplicity, clients took to GRPs easily and it soon became a strong trading currency for media. Today, everything that is done is to create, deliver, manage, buy, sell - this GRP. This GRP comes in various reach and frequency packs and is available across media. This GRP has become the magic wand with which the client and the agency attempt to deliver market shares.

The simplification is also evident in the remuneration structure that is prevalent in the industry. Everything that is done in communication is measured in terms of the traded value of media bought and the agencies are paid as a percentage of that. Since, actually estimating the real value contributed by media is difficult - so a percentage of spends keeps it simple.

I guess, the whole media eco-system looks at the issues too simplistically and that is why "value-creation" is reducing day by day and leading to commoditization of media, media schedules, media talent and of media agencies. The advertisers will continue to simplify, but if, the media and advertising domain wants to enhance its value they will have to do away with this over-simplification. After all, Value is in the details.
  

Media as an Ingredient

There was a time when the usage of media was optional. Media was an add-on which if a brand so desired or if needed would use to spur sales.

When, I look at this from the cooking perspective (since, I love cooking a lot) I would say that media was used just as a garnish. Yes, it did make the dish seem more desirable and added some flavours but one could certainly do without it.

Media was never appreciated. When the sales were healthy - there was no need for media and when the brand was in dire straits and there was strain on profitability - media was the first to be curtailed.

But, those were the times of the seller; the consumer then was a deprived citizen and had no say or choice in what was being served to him. The seller prepared the product and used media just to 'inform' the consumer either of its existence, its merits or its price. Media was never embedded in the value creation that the product or service promised; it was so far only communicating the value. Hence, the use of media was need based.

The world has changed. Consumer is King.

It is not about the seller asking the consumer about what they want and then manufacturing the product or service accordingly. The matters have progressed far beyond that. The sellers are no longer in control. They have morphed from brand owners to brand custodians to just being brand moderators. Despite all the theory that existed - the brand in the yester years was still in the mind of the brand owner (with due feedback and research of the consumer). But, now the consumer is in control of the brand. 

Here, when I say consumer  it is again different from the consumer of yester years. Earlier you would imagine the consumer as an individual (or a number of individuals - not connected to one another) but today the the consumer is a group - a group of connected and communicating people. Earlier, the consumer was a multitude of individuals but now is a Collective.

More and more products and services are being designed so that their consumption also happens or heightens when consumed as a Collective. And, these are not being designed by just the companies. The companies are a participant in this collective along with the consumers. Media runs as blood in the veins of this collective binding the consumers to each other and hence media is intrinsic to the construction of the brand.

Media is no longer an add-on; no longer a garnish; no longer need-based.

Media is critical and essential to the construction of the brand and the consumption of the brand.

Media has become an ingredient for the brand.

Brands that still treat media as an add-on have a lot of thinking to do. And, the day brands change this perspective - I am sure they will start looking differently at how they select and integrate media into their value promise. This will change the value they attribute to media in their P&L and will also impact the remuneration they pay for those who advise them on media. 

Media is no longer a garnish, but is a critical ingredient in the brand.

Future of TV in India

The Campaign A-List has collated the responses of over 300 Senior Professional from the Media Industry. In a recent, blog post "A-List of Changes"  I discussed what are the changes that these professional seek from media and advertising. Here, I am presenting a review of what all do they specifically expect to change in Television.

Here, of course I am ignoring ideas that are too extreme (like - ban TV) or too difficult to digest (such as - add smells to TV). Of course! TV was one of the mediums that had the most variety of comments for its future. I have classified these comments in 5 broad categories, each concerned about the following:

• The TV Technology
• The Advertising on TV
• TV Content
• Pricing of TV Commercial Time
• Research & Measurement for TV

The slide here illustrates the different comments received and hence gives a glimpse of the changes once can hope for in the future.

The A-List is most worried about the overdose of advertising. Hence, in the future of TV wants ad-free channels, limit commercial time, limit ad-durations, limit frequency of ads, zap commercials, stop TV tickers and logos on screen, and so on.  

Overall, in TV Technology the Media Seniors want to have 2-way communication on TV thus making it Interactive. Other wants are - digitization of Cable, making TV HD, Addressability for DTH. Yes, they also want to have a like/dislike button on TV for giving feedback on content and advertising.

In Content, the primary concern is for News Channels about paid news, anchors getting hysterical and dramatization of news.

The Creative people still have not had enough of indulgence in Television and are dreaming of having cheaper ad-rates so that they can make longer duration ads - since 30s is just not enough to tell a story.

TV Measurement as always is wanting - larger sample and better coverage but this time there is more concern about what we are measuring. Instead of TVRs, the A-List seeks to have TV Respect Points and TV Watchability Ratings. Advertisers want to go beyond CPRPs to Ad-effectiveness measures and Impact measures.

Interesting thoughts, which if materialized will certainly change TV for the better in the future. So, I sincerely hope that the A-List is able to bring in the changes that they seek - for if they cant then who else can !!!

A-List of Changes

All of us have our own view of the future of media and advertising and each one of us is working towards the changes one wants to make on the media canvass. But, have you ever wondered what is the collective view of such individual wishes and actions?

Well, here is a perspective.

I looked at the recently released A-List - courtesy Campaign India and Dainik Bhaskar Group. About 300 media professional shared their view on what they would want to change in media. I must say, it was very interesting reading - at times entertaining, some views shocking, some thought-provking and insightful; but overall - a read full of learning.

It was so exciting to read what all different people envision for the future of different media. There are different personalities that emerge from a simple analysis of this document:

the extremists - who want to totally ban some media;

the romantics - who still want the old era charm to be retained even in the new media;

the dreamers - who want no limits to creative expression;

the technologists - who want to infuse better technology across media;

the liberals - who are either not concerned or believe that change is anyways happening;

the accountants - who want more measures to do better evaluations;

the believers - who believe that all is well and no change is required;

.... and so on.. cant think of any more categories..

But, what is the big-picture that this A-list reveals for the media industry. What are their primary issues and concerns? And, these are best captured in this word map below on the basis of the changes that are sought in this media industry.

The primary themes that I read from this for the future of media here in India can be listed below:

• Reduce, Stop, Ban, Remove, Spam, Clutter, Less: Less advertising clutter
• Interactive: Every media to seek 2-way communication
• Measurement, Effectiveness: Better measurement and evaluation
• Digital, Bandwidth, Internet: Digital has arrived
• Accountability, Transparency, Truth: Responsible business dealings
• Better, Aesthetics, Cheaper: Deliver More in Less

The changes wanted most badly - by the number of people suggesting these are the following (not in any order):

• Stop Half-Jackets on newspapers
• Spare the Newspaper Front Page
• Reduce TV advertising Clutter
• Stop SPAM on Mobiles
• Remove Ugly Outdoor
• Remove 'intrusions' in content on TV
• Reduce Celebrities in Ads
• Better Measurement for OOH
• Better Measurement for Digital
• Reduce regulation for Radio

I would love to discuss each media in detail separately, as the expectations of different people from each media are so different. While, some want to ban a media; some are looking to regulate it; some want to indulge in it for their creative delight; some want to re-orient it for the future; some are worried about measurement and some about its rate....

But, I will decide to write on that basis feedback on this write-up. Hope you found this interesting.