NEW STUDY BY MAGNA AND IPG MEDIA LAB QUANTIFIES HOW OFTEN NON-FRAUDULENT DIGITAL AD IMPRESSIONS ARE WASTED BECAUSE NO ONE IS PRESENT

Dissecting ‘Opportunity to See’ Reveals That When Digital Ads Appear on Screen, A Person is Present 99.2% of the Time, But That Begins to Drop After 2+ Seconds

 

NEW YORK – May 11, 2020 – Thus far, the advertising industry has primarily focused on only one of the factors that determines “opportunity to see” digital ads – whether the ad actually appears on the screen. What is often not discussed is the other factor that offers a non-fraudulent digital ad an “opportunity to be seen” – a person is present when the ad is on screen. To date, human presence has often been overlooked by the industry because it is difficult to measure, and because ads are served to personal devices like mobile phones. Thus, it is presumed that someone is present when a digital ad is on screen. While it seems logical, no one has actually tested this conjecture until now.

 

This concept of human “presence” is a common concern for TV ads given the fact that people often leave the room during commercial breaks. In fact, MAGNA, IPG Media Lab, and TVision recently quantified how often an ad airs to an empty room, which is 29% of the time. As a follow-up, a new study by MAGNA and IPG Media Lab, “Dissecting ‘Opportunity to See,’” tested the presumption that a person is present when digital ads appear on the screen, in an effort to quantify how often digital ads appear without the person present.

 

Presence is defined as a person in the same visual range (for >=1 sec) of a digital ad that fully appears on the screen (the person may or may not be looking at the screen).  A major finding from the study is that while presence is very high at first (99.2%), it does decline.  For example, 94% of non-skippable video ads reached six or more seconds of human presence.

 

For the study, participants used in-home POV cameras to record their digital viewing experiences across PC and mobile devices in a natural environment over the course of two weeks. In each instance, the camera was mounted to the participant’s head in order to obtain a view of where they are in relation to their digital device, and a screen recorder was turned on their PC and mobile devices to capture what’s on the screen. The study included 102 participants, with 1,004 hours of video recorded and analyzed.

 

“It’s crucial for marketers to accurately understand both of the components that determine whether ads have the opportunity to be seen”, said Kara Manatt, SVP, Group Director, Intelligence Solutions, MAGNA Global. “While the industry has a strong understanding of ‘ads on screen’, we’ve yet to understand whether we should expect a person to always be present. This research finally quantifies this for us and provides invaluable insight into consumer behavior.”

 

Additional key findings include:

  • There was nearly total presence regardless of device and for both digital video (98.4%) and display (100%).
  • All video positions are not created equally; digital presence for pre-roll video sat at 99.5%, compared to mid-roll video at 97.1%.
  • Overall, 97.7% of digital video ads had presence for 2+ seconds.
  • Presence, however, declines over time indicating the continued need for the industry to understand how to best capture and hold consumer attention.

 

The full study can be found  here.  As mentioned earlier, the study was a follow up to research conducted by MAGNA and IPG Media Lab, in partnership with TVision, “Quantifying TV Viewability,” which revealed how often people are in the room when ads air and how this varies by daypart, position in ad pod and ad length.

Download the report

 

About MAGNA

MAGNA is the centralized IPG Mediabrands resource that develops intelligence, investment and innovation strategies for agency teams and clients. We utilize our insights, forecasts and strategic relationships to provide clients with a competitive marketplace advantage.

 

MAGNA harnesses the aggregate power of all IPG media investments to create leverage in the market, negotiate preferred pricing and secure premium inventory to drive maximum value for our clients. The MAGNA Investment and Innovation teams architect go-to-market investment strategies across all channels including linear television, print, digital and programmatic on behalf of IPG clients. The team focuses on the use of emerging media opportunities, as well as data and technology-enabled solutions to drive optimal client performance and business results.

 

MAGNA Intelligence has set the industry standard for more than 60 years by predicting the future of media value. The MAGNA Intelligence team produces more than 40 annual reports on audience trends, media spend and market demand as well as ad effectiveness.

 

About IPG Media Lab

Part of the Interpublic network, the IPG Media Lab identifies and researches innovations and trends that will change the media landscape and how brands engage with their audiences. Since 2006, the Lab has worked with our clients and with industry partners who can help them best adapt to disruptive change. Its expertise, resources and consulting services also help to inform the learnings, strategies and business outcomes of all Interpublic agencies. For more information, please visit www.ipglab.com or follow @ipglab.

 

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Media Contact:

Zinnia Gill

IPG Mediabrands

Director, Global Corporate Communications

(646) 965-4271

[email protected]

 

WHAT ADVERTISERS HAVE PLANNED FOR THE NFL’S FIRST ‘VIRTUAL DRAFT’

By  E.J. SCHULTZ and JACK NEFF. Published by AD AGE on 23 April 2020.

P&G is running a ‘virtual red carpet,’ Pizza Hut and Frito-Lay are sending homebound players food, and Bud Light wants fans to boo the commissioner on social media

IPG Units Find ‘HVAs’ Work Better Than Conventional Targeting, Rival Contextual’s Premiums

By JOE MANDESE.  Published by MEDIA POST on 8 April 2020.

 

“HVAs,” an increasingly popular new acronym being used by marketers and agencies to describe methods of targeting only “high value audiences” via various identity-based data schemes, appears to perform better than conventional methods of targeting media audiences, especially Madison Avenue’s stock-in-trade: the demographic. That’s the conclusion of a rigorous test conducted by IPG Mediabrands’ Magna and IPG Media Lab units.The test, which utilizes IPG’s proprietary research panel, as well as proprietary HVA segments created via its Kinesso platform (the data platform that leverages IPG’s Acxiom unit), conducted various controls to measure the effects of common advertising KPIs (key performance indicators) such as ad recall and purchase intent, and in every case it demonstrated that utilizing HVAs performed much better than demographics, contextual targeting, or even a mix of demographics and contextual targeting.

Contextual targeting utilizes the nature of the medium and/or the content that consumers are accessing as a proxy for their interests and intent as consumers of a brand’s products and or advertising messages, and according to Magna Senior Vice President-Group Director of Intelligence Solutions & Strategy Kara Manatt, the findings indicate that HVA targeting is more valuable than the premiums often paid for contextually-targeted audiences.

“I don’t thinks it has changed what we think about contextual,” she explains, noting, “In many cases, I would say contextual is worth a premium. But for most brands you cannot run your entire campaign on contextual, because there’s not enough inventory.”

In theory, utilizing HVAs enables brands and agencies to tap an unlimited array of media and content based on where those high value audiences index best.

Manatt emphasized that brands “should not spend a lot of money” using the method without also “doing a lot of testing and vetting it out.”

While IPG’s Kinesso has proprietary data and methods of identifying HVAs, the concept is available to any brand, agency and data management partners who can associate identity-based audiences with a brand’s highest value consumers.

NEW STUDY BY MAGNA AND IPG MEDIA LAB REVEALS THAT USING PEOPLE-BASED IDS TO REACH HIGH VALUE AUDIENCES YIELDS 50% HIGHER ROI

‘From Cookies to People’ Shares How the Identification of High Value Audiences (HVAs) Yields Precision That Cookies Can’t and Is Ultimately More Effective for Advertisers

NEW YORK – April 8, 2020 – From mass market, to household demos, to individual demo, and finally, to big data, the advertising industry has undoubtedly come a long way in how it reaches people. While traditional methods enabled us to reach large audiences based on reported behavior, a new study by MAGNA and IPG Media Lab reveals that new, advanced technologies, using people-based IDs, yield precision that cookies simply can’t. “From Cookies to People: Reaching High Value Audiences” demonstrates how the added precision with High Value Audiences (HVAs) can aid brands in their reach efforts with the hope of no wasted impressions. The study used Kinesso’s database in order to ethically source and identify HVAs. Other strategies were also tested in the study, such as demo, contextual, and demo + contextual.

 

More specifically, HVAs are defined as specific personas that are identified as having more lifetime value than a consumer reached via traditional methods, like demographics, and are highly customized based on variables such as category status and psychographics. These segments are created from a large data set with audience behavior tracked at the consumer level. Modeling is used to predict conversions from behaviors.

 

Brands can identify HVAs for a variety of different reasons, from reaching a particularly niche audience to converting consumers currently using a competitor product/service. There’s no one-size-fits-all for HVA strategies.

 

Key insights from the study include:

 

  • Identifying HVAs goes beyond simply zeroing in on those who are already going to buy; the tested HVAs were efficiently reaching potential new customers.

 

  • Ads were more memorable among tested HVAs and were especially effective at fostering a strong brand image. While contextual targeting drove brand resonance as well and is seen as being worth a premium, campaign reach can still be an issue.

 

  • HVAs were persuaded to purchase the brand, up +8% compared to +4% Demo, +4% Contextual and +6% Demo + Contextual. In addition, HVAs were particularly effective at driving purchase intent among in-market consumers, despite being least likely to have purchased the brand before.

 

  • The tested HVAs were particularly critical of ads not customized to them. However, when tested HVAs saw creative that they perceived as relevant, the ads were more effective, presenting a clear opportunity to customize creative for HVAs.

 

“Utilizing HVAs is one of the most precise and effective ways for advertisers to reach the best possible audiences on linear and digital video, and I believe it’s the future of our industry,” said Dani Benowitz, President, U.S., MAGNA. “We’re at a point in time where we’re able to save impressions from being wasted for advertisers, and in turn, are able to deliver content to viewers that they want to see since it is so targeted to their interests, which is a win-win for everyone.”

 

“We’ve been pleased to see interest around utilizing HVAs rise fourfold over the past three years as brands become more sophisticated in their marketing efforts,” said Michael Heberle, Chief Marketing Scientist, Kinesso. “It’s been a game changer for our clients, who have driven drastic improvements in business performance through better targeting.”

 

In order to identify HVAs, the study’s methodology involved recruiting YouTube users for participation from a nationally representative panel using Kinesso’s database of privacy-safe, best-in-class providers. Participants selected online video topics based on personal interests and those that were not interested were screened out to ensure a natural audience. Randomization was introduced into the test and control groups (Test= Brand Ad; Control = Public Service Announcement; 50% skippable ads; 50% non-skippable ads). Participants visited YouTube’s testing page where they selected and played the video content based on their interests, and relevant behavior was tracked. The targeting strategies used included HVA targeting, demo targeting, contextual targeting, and demo + contextual targeting.

 

Download the full report

 

 

About MAGNA

MAGNA is the centralized IPG Mediabrands resource that develops intelligence, investment and innovation strategies for agency teams and clients. We utilize our insights, forecasts and strategic relationships to provide clients with a competitive marketplace advantage.

 

MAGNA harnesses the aggregate power of all IPG media investments to create leverage in the market, negotiate preferred pricing and secure premium inventory to drive maximum value for our clients. The MAGNA Investment and Innovation teams architect go-to-market investment strategies across all channels including linear television, print, digital and programmatic on behalf of IPG clients. The team focuses on the use of emerging media opportunities, as well as data and technology-enabled solutions to drive optimal client performance and business results.

 

MAGNA Intelligence has set the industry standard for more than 60 years by predicting the future of media value. The MAGNA Intelligence team produces more than 40 annual reports on audience trends, media spend and market demand as well as ad effectiveness.

 

About IPG Media Lab

Part of the Interpublic network, the IPG Media Lab identifies and researches innovations and trends that will change the media landscape and how brands engage with their audiences. Since 2006, the Lab has worked with our clients and with industry partners who can help them best adapt to disruptive change. Its expertise, resources and consulting services also help to inform the learnings, strategies and business outcomes of all Interpublic agencies. For more information, please visit www.ipglab.com or follow @ipglab.

 

# # #

 

Media Contact:

Zinnia Gill

IPG Mediabrands

Director, Global Corporate Communications

(646) 965-4271

[email protected]

 

MAGNA SLASHES 2020 AD FORECAST DUE TO CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

By JEANINE POGGI. Published  by ADAGE on March 26, 2020.

Agency expects 2.8 percent decline in U.S. ad sales, down from previous forecast of 6.6 percent growth