ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY in MEDIA TODAY: an Ebiquity Guide
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A CLEARER PICTURE ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN MEDIA TODAY: An Ebiquity guide p1 // A CLEARER PICTURE - Accountability and transparency in media today IN A NUTSHELL Today’s media world is complex and fragmented. Technology and working practices have led to a lack “The objective of accountability and transparency, is to improve return frequently exacerbated by a lack of on investment by contractual clarity. ensuring that advertising performance is measured This guide is designed specifically and optimized, with minimal to help advertisers’ media and loss of effectiveness marketing procurement teams deliver greater brand and business through unnecessary performance. It aims to ensure costs.” that advertsing performance is measured and optimized, and that advertisers’ budgets are put to the most effective use. The guide charts the reasons how and why today’s media industry has become so opaque. It concludes by proposing ways in which advertisers should tackle these issues head-on, with the emphasis on actionable recommendations to improve performance. As independent marketing performance specialists, Ebiquity believes that brand owners should seek accountability of performance and transparency of data and money flows to enhance business performance through greater marketing efficiency and effectiveness. This document explains how. To see the transparency in today’s complex media market visualized, go to page 12. p2 // A CLEARER PICTURE - Accountability and transparency in media today IN THIS GUIDE THE CONTEXT – The new media landscape 4 Digitization, integration, and measurement 4 Programmatic promises 4 Advertiser reactions 5 THE PROBLEM – The media market and lack of transparency 6 Consolidating agency buying power 6 Profit margin pressures 6 Transparency in the digital market 7 Contractual rights and wrongs 8 The impact on advertisers 9 The problem in summary 10 THE SOLUTION – How advertisers take back control 11 Independent performance measurement 11 Data analytics technology 16 Ownership and control of data 17 Getting the right contract 17 Agency remuneration and reward 18 Media transparency visualized 12 The main points again / Further reading 20 Glossary 21 About the author 22 About Ebiquity 23 p3 // A CLEARER PICTURE - Accountability and transparency in media today “Integrated marketing communications across multiple platforms and devices is now the norm, not THE CONTEXT the exception.” The new media landscape Driven by the explosion of digital supplemented by the wide range of provides effectively unlimited channels, the media landscape new digital options such as search, real-time opportunities to track has changed out of all recognition mobile, social media, online display, and record consumer interactions. over the past ten years. The online video, and newer content- Data analytics are replacing ‘gut market for media planning, buying, related options such as native feel’, judgment, and research as the optimization, and measurement advertising. primary means of making marketing is more complex, confusing, and choices. Meanwhile, tough opaque than ever – and the With digitally delivered interactivity, economic times have encouraged proliferation of media channels and most especially in social media, brand owners to concentrate on choices means that complexity is people can now upload their likes, real return on investment – so the ‘new normal.’ comments, photos, stories, and measurement of actual impact on other user-generated content as business performance, not just In this section, we characterize much as they want, whenever they audience delivery. the most important elements of want, wherever they like. People this new media landscape and the express themselves freely and And this isn’t the case just for the consequences it has for advertisers pass comment in a way that can traditional medium of advertising; and their relationships with media help make or break reputations of customer data now commands a agencies and media agency groups. brands and businesses (so-called substantial proportion of marketers’ earned media), requiring brand attention via sophisticated Digitalization, integration, and owners to be always-on, managing databases, used for targeting, measurement their brand exposure and reputation retargeting, and personalization continuously and in real-time. of marketing messages through We live in a multi-channel, multi- multiple channels, built around device, mobile-led world, where The result is that integrated Customer Relationship Marketing. consumers have an almost infinite marketing communications across range of information, entertainment, multiple platforms and devices is In particular, the market for the and communication options now the norm, not the exception, trading of online media inventory available to them – on demand. and any brand or service aiming has changed beyond recognition to influence consumer attitudes in the last few years, and will In turn, there are now countless and behaviors has to adopt a paid, be transformed still further by opportunities to reach potential earned, shared, and owned (PESO) the increasing development of customers with marketing fully integrated approach. This technologies which help the sell communications messages, whether makes life tougher for marketing and buy sides interact with each through paid-for advertising or the professionals, who have to manage other automatically, with less human advertiser’s own branded content, a complex nexus of channels and intervention. such as their web-based, owned- messages, often employing many media properties. different agencies with specialist Programmatic promises expertise to deliver a multi-channel The existing choices within strategy. The principles and practice of traditional channels have multiplied programmatic (i.e. automated) dramatically (so hundreds of And then there is measurement. trading are now well established in TV channels, for example), Digital transmission, in particular, some markets, and there has been p4 // A CLEARER PICTURE - Accountability and transparency in media today “Today’s brand owners are faced by ever more choice accompanied by incredible complexity.” a rapid increase in the volume of • The potential accountability and agency] profits continue to rise. This inventory traded automatically and transparency of data-led buying demonstrates that advertisers feel via real-time bidding (RTB), where decisions. that agencies and media owners are buyers and sellers are matched being less transparent than ever.’ according to preset criteria in the In short, today’s brand owners blink of an eye. are faced by ever more choice In fact, the entire media trading accompanied by incredible market has never been less In 2014, $9.8 billion of US online complexity. The revolution brought transparent than it is today. display space is forecast to be about by digital technology and Advertisers are finding it more programmatically traded, and 34% of platforms has transformed consumer difficult to track the flow of their this will be sold and bought via RTB behavior, increased consumer performance and money in this (source: eMarketer, Programmatic power and choice of what they increasingly complex eco-system. Advertising: Forecast and Future are served when, and disrupted The net result is twofold: Growth Trends, November 2013). traditional business models. Look There have also been early around any commuter train in any • Many clients are arguably paying examples of automated trading city and witness the shift from too much for their advertising, reaching the outer shores of newspapers to tablets, for instance. and their agencies are potentially TV, especially in the USA. The making windfall profits from increasing penetration of internet- Advertiser reactions the lack of transparency in the delivered TV – including Hulu, market, especially in the digital Netflix, and the controversial So far, so promising. But there channels. is mounting evidence that the Aereo – will undoubtedly lead to • Advertisers feel that they do not advertisers who fund the entire automated trading in the world’s have full control over, and access advertising eco-system are not yet most popular, powerful, and biggest to, their customer data. branding medium. seeing the full potential benefits of the new advertising model. This short guide charts the reasons Advertisers are attracted by the The extraordinary changes in why the industry has become so efficiencies of automated buying the consumer market have not opaque. In looking to tackle these and selling of media space, for four been replicated in the structures issues, brand owners should seek key reasons: and processes of the advertising accountability of performance and industry. And while digital data offers • The ability to achieve more transparency of data and money the promise of full transparency of flows. The objective should be effective, efficient, and media performance, the experience personalized targeting of to increase working budgets and of many of the world’s biggest improve business performance. selected audiences through data advertisers shows that this is not yet analytics. This guide explains how, with happening in the media markets. the emphasis on actionable • The efficiencies inherent in a less recommendations. In 2012, the World Federation of manual process. Advertisers (WFA) surveyed their • The intrinsic measurement members and found that 88% capability of data-rich channels. agreed with the following statement: ‘Agency fees are falling,