The 2015 Digital Trends Report from Media Storm is out, with the 10 things you need to know in media trends and measurement.
Media Storm is part of The Water Cooler Group, also the parent company of Bolt, Hip Genius and Maude.
I asked Charlie Fiordalis, their Chief Digital Officer to elaborate on some of their findings:
Trend #2: The video currency will shift to viewability.
JS: So how do viewable online impressions compare to served? Is there a multiplier you can apply to served to forecast viewable, like 0.15*served = viewable?
CF: There’s a big discrepancy in data here. For display, Google reported in December that 56% of its display ads aren’t viewable.
I think 50% viewability is a good rule-of-thumb currently for display. We run viewability studies on many of our video campaigns and 60% viewable (50% for at least 2 seconds) is the average. IAB put out an article that 70% should be the goal.
Viewability isn’t an isolated metric, however. The real goal is to focus all efforts on the few activities that have been proven to move the business forward.
Trend #4: Digital will be more coordinated across all screens.
JS: Who are the providers of cross-screen tracking?
CF: There are two main types of companies in the cross-screen space:
1. Data Smiths: Companies like TapAd, BlueCava and Drawbridge utilize owned and 3rd party data sources to track consumers across devices and establish profiles of individuals across the screens they own. They then use these profiles to purchase media from unique media sources (i.e. deals they have with publishers) or from the open exchange.
2. New Media Giants: Companies like Google and Facebook have large install bases across devices with users who sign in across all of their devices. Whereas the Data Smiths (my title for them) use a secret combination of alchemy to cook up their targeting, Google and Facebook have very logical and understandable cross-device information.
Trend #5: You’ll know if digital actually drives tune-in.
JS: I think I understand what digital tune-in means. Why is tracking an issue?
CF: Tune-in marketing drives consumers to watch a show at a specific date and time. The currency in television is Live+ same-day ratings. It’s our goal to maximize the Nielsen Live+ same-day numbers on linear television.
The issue with digital is that there’s a gap between your phone/tablet/PC and the television, so it’s hard to tell if the digital advertising actually got someone to change the channel.
We’ve pioneered quite a few ways to do it over the past year and have found that digital advertising (video and display across mobile/tablet/desktop) has driven 10%-30% lift in conversion to linear television viewing. We had a gut feeling it would, but those numbers even surprised me!
We’re working with several set-top-box data sources (Rentrak, Tivo Analytics), OTT sources (SambaTV) and Apps (Peel) to get access to their tune-in data via our new programmatic company 99X so we can activate and track conversion across full campaigns. It’s going to be an exciting year!
For more on Charlie and the Water Cooler Group, visit their website: https://watercoolergroup.biz/
