Emerging media buying is not a direct
translation of the conventional media buying process. Here's how to
monetize the future of these channels.
The current reality of advertising in emerging
media channels is akin to early pioneers trailblazing a path to the
West -- in many cases, you make it up as you go. While it would be nice
to have ad models and standardized analytics in place, the huge expanse
of emerging platforms doesn't allow for it right now. As is often the
case in emerging mediums, audience dynamics and technology are unstable
and difficult to monetize.
But there are benefits, too.
The demand to engage audiences in these new channels and acquire
proprietary experience and research is often more important than the
scale of the trial.
If price is not the pivotal element in the buying process, how do
you validate your client's adoption of emerging media platforms? In
many cases, the value is likely less about straight CPM campaigns and
more about partnering with a technology provider to test media
performance and forge an ad model for future initiatives in the medium.
Where a media vendor executes against your direction, in emerging media
it's really about partnering with your colleagues to forge a symbiotic
existence within these new channels. The collaboration will require
patience and trial and error as iteration upon iteration of creative,
pricing models and measurement is defined, rolled out and analyzed
against key objectives.
In most cases, these endeavors are not meant to be profitable
ventures but rather educational and proof-of-concept opportunities for
advertiser and seller. Instead of pure-play CPM deals, many of the
projects I've planned, bought and sold have a fixed cost that buys the
advertiser a number of campaign components typically including
research, media impressions and PR elements.
Here are a few common campaign elements and ways to assign price or value:
1) Media cost. Apply traditional pricing models to
the emerging platform. You can determine an appropriate value of 1,000
impressions (CPM) based on executional experience in other relatively
new channels like video, BT networks or advanced television. Or propose
variations to the pricing model based on the platform's unique
abilities. If a widget lends itself better to driving a particular
action, then negotiate to have the model center on cost-per-action.
2) Research cost and value. Many clients and
agencies will find a custom research component provides the greatest
value and return on investment for emerging media campaigns. Designing
research with agency and publisher teams can help identify and test key
hypotheses and provide valuable ad effectiveness and consumer insights.
Both parties walk away with valuable data and feedback to improve their
media and consumer offering. Research costs will vary widely depending
on the platform you are experimenting with, but costs should be
transparent between the publisher and agency participants.
3) PR value. You may find that press attention
surrounding your emerging media trial is a key value to the client and
agency. Both buyer and seller can work together on building press
coverage and package PR outreach as part of the campaign. If you are
seeing a tremendous amount of press coverage, you can work with a PR
specialist to measure coverage, mentions and calculate advertising
value equivalents.
4) Experimental value. Clients and agencies can
find value in building innovation into their business plans, executing
across new platforms and building a first-mover advantage among their
competitors. The monetary value may appear in two ways:
- Organic growth -- successful and unsuccessful trials will inform
future business planning and provide a roadmap for agencies and clients
to continue to extend their efforts into emerging platforms. This
leads to new creative, media and analytics initiatives.
- New business -- first movers have cut their teeth in these new
environments and can see how future clients may or may not benefit from
work in these platforms.
5) Package deal. The final and most common
arrangement is a package deal that fixes a total cost for multiple
components and is often easier for buyer and seller to secure budgets.
A package program can remove the challenges of new, unscaled audiences
and applications and supplement the campaign with strong research and
PR elements. A fixed cost helps the advertiser get a foot in the door
with an emerging channel and defrays some of the hard costs and
resources provided by the tech or publisher partner.
A media and research program with Joost and a Bluecasting trial for
Microsoft are two examples of emerging media programs we've produced
here at the Lab.
The IPG Emerging Media Lab partnered with Joost
to create a pilot advertising program across its platform during
Joost's 2007 beta. The package deal brought IPG agencies like Universal
McCann, Initiative, MRM and Draft FCB and their clients to the new IP
video platform that Joost launched in North America and Europe. The
program allowed IPG clients and agencies to gain exposure to Joost's
tech-minded, cutting edge internet audience and provided deep
attitudinal and ad effectiveness research specific to each brand
involved in the trial. The negotiated price for the trial,
approximately $50,000 per advertiser, per region, was largely based on
research cost and not tied directly to an audience size metric, like
CPM. Joost provided beta participants with campaign-end media
reporting, ad effectiveness research results and recommended tactics to
boost future performance within Joost. The beta program was truly a
partnership in that Joost and the agency teams worked through
challenges like optimizing the mix of ad units and implementing
third-party tags in the video client.
6) Bluecasting. The IPG Emerging Media Lab and
Microsoft U.S. Business and Marketing Office Online Media team
identified Bluecasting -- transmitting content via Bluetooth technology
-- as an ideal fit to connect and build relationships with IT
professionals and developers at last years Microsoft Tech-Ed tradeshow.
Bluecasting allowed Microsoft to augment its presence at the show by
leveraging an emerging technology to immediately deliver valuable
content to attendees including mobile coupons, ebooks and podcasts.
This pilot program drove a 9 percent opt-in rate among all conference
attendees and provided valuable data and experience to the team to use
in evaluating the campaign against other initiatives and investments.
Package cost for a similar program could range from $35-$50k for a one-
to two-week deployment.
Emerging media buying is not a direct translation of the
conventional media buying process and is more about shaping the future
of how these channels will be standardized and monetized as they move
into mainstream usage.
As the platforms continue to mature, the
media professionals who pioneered advertising within these new
platforms by budgeting for innovation and collaborating with partners
will be rewarded with valuable insight and practical experience that
can be applied to future endeavors.
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