Category: News

Adapting MMM models to COVID-related changes

Evaluating media budget effectiveness and finding optimal media mix has always been an important and difficult task, and it’s even more so in the current situation during the COVID-19 outbreak. In this article we will discuss Facebook and experts’ advice on adjusting marketing mix models to the situation on the market and explain how our solution can be useful to marketers today. We are trying to keep you updated on all marketing measurement trends, that’s why we prepared an article on the use of measurement tools after the phase-out of cookies and IDFA. Get ready to privacy changes and apply solutions that won’t be affected by the new conditions. See how MMM, MTA, brand studies and other approaches are going to function without third-party cookies. Marketing budget allocation is a very important strategic process. And making the right decision is especially difficult when game-changing situations like the COVID-19 outbreak happen. Today it’s necessary to invest in channels that will bring measurable results. Marketing Mix Modelling is a well-tried, reliable tool that has been helping marketers to make well-informed strategic decisions and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. In a previous article we said that modern MMM solutions meeting advertisers’ requirements… Read more »

New era of cross-media measurement

In September 2020, the World Federation of Advertisers revealed a new cross-media measurement proposal framework developed in partnership with major digital platforms. In this article you will learn what requirements a new solution has to meet and how AdoptoMedia can benefit advertisers on this matter.  We are trying to keep you updated on all marketing measurement trends, that’s why we prepared an article on the use of measurement tools after the phase-out of cookies and IDFA. Get ready to privacy changes and apply solutions that won’t be affected by the new conditions. See how MMM, MTA, brand studies and other approaches are going to function without third-party cookies. Over time with the appearance of new communication channels, media mix has become very complex. Today companies promote their goods and services through a wide range of digital and offline channels, which complicates marketers’ task of analyzing the effectiveness of advertising activities. WFA considers accurate evaluation of cross-media campaigns so important that in partnership with digital platforms, including Google and Facebook it worked for over 18 months to create a framework that should stimulate a new approach to measurement. Large advertisers, agencies and other members of the marketing ecosystem also contributed to… Read more »

CMA reveals digital advertising market problems in the UK

The digital marketing spend is growing putting marketers under pressure to justify huge investments. And even with a variety of measurement techniques it’s not easy to find what really works, especially taking into account transparency issues. In this article we discuss new problems related to digital media and how to cope with them. An independent government department in the UK that promotes competition and consumer law – Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) – carried out an investigation of digital advertising sphere as a part of the new strategy designed to better handle quickly growing digital economy. In July 2019, they started looking into operations of online platforms, including the two biggest ones – Google and Facebook. The report voices concerns about transparency of the business, but before we go deeper in detail, let’s take a look back and see how we got to the current situation. It all started with the 2016 ANA/K2 Intelligence report on media transparency in the U.S., which was a true wake-up call for the advertising industry. The report revealed numerous non-transparent business practices like rebates in different agencies. The fact that they failed to act in the best interests of their clients severely shook the… Read more »

Why Adidas changes its marketing measurement approach?

Research shows that using marketing technology to measure effectiveness results in significant performance improvement. But what if the approach you use is flawed and measurement results are only preventing your business from making the most of advertising. Such was the case with Adidas that had been over-investing in digital channels due to MTA analytics. Turns out even multinational corporations like Adidas aren’t immune to mistakes. But who can blame them? I mean weren’t we all charmed by promising advantages of multi-touch attribution. It’s a relatively new tool that functions at a highly granular level and is especially suitable for measuring digital campaigns. MTA can analyze individual customer journey and find what marketing activities lead to conversion. This high level of granularity makes you think that the tool is more accurate than it really is, but this major strength became its main problem when legal restrictions concerning data privacy came into force. GDPR severely limits the potential of attribution. Other limitations of MTA are: It covers a limited number of KPIs Most models cover only digital channels and can’t account for offline touchpoints. It attributes too much credit to digital advertising Privacy regulations limit its functionality It’s difficult to stitch touchpoints… Read more »

Nestlé’s hybrid approach to in-housing

What is more effective: external agencies or an in-house team? It seems Nestlé found a perfect compromise in the heated debate: they gathered a team of external specialists supervised by internal executives to achieve more effective marketing management. Here you can find what functions they decided to handle themselves and what goals they were pursuing with the move. In attempt to increase marketing effectiveness and transparency the world's largest food company pulled experts in media and tech from partner agencies and appointed internal executives to lead them. Today many large advertisers are thinking about moving at least some capabilities in-house, even though the process is not very simple, and there are a few concerns and problems related to it. Partially it was triggered by the FBI investigation into non-transparent practices in the industry. But it’s worth mentioning that in-housing is not just a temporary trend, it’s becoming a reality, especially hybrid approach to it. According to a recent ANA (Association of National Advertisers) study, 78% of their members have an IHA. If Nestlé’s internal team proves a success, it can become a model case for other companies. And it seems to be a good strategy, because they can choose the… Read more »

How to deal with in-housing problems

According to a joint research by In-House Agency Forum and Forrester, 64% of American corporations had an in-house agency in 2018 compared to 42% in 2008. The trend is becoming a reality even though it’s costly and challenging. In this article we investigate the benefits of building internal capabilities, functions better managed internally and ways to deal with widespread concerns and obstacles. It is quite obvious that large brands like Procter & Gamble, Ally Financial and Clorox wouldn’t set up internal marketing teams if it was useless. For example, P&G established its own agency in 2018 as a part of their new marketing strategy saving $750 mln. Apart from cost efficiency in-housing is also driven by the opportunity to gain greater brand insights, increase transparency and control over the creative. Another advantage of IHAs is they have the same goal with the brand and are more invested in successful outcome, which is not always the case with outside agencies. Sometimes they have conflicting interests and focus not on promoting the advertiser but on promoting themselves. It’s definitely not always the case, but happens occasionally. In-house teams better understand the business, know more about your products or services. They are insiders… Read more »

How to change marketing strategy during the coronavirus outbreak?

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the whole world to face unexpected challenges and adapt to the new conditions. Millions of people working in different industries including marketing are looking for ways to succeed or at least remain stable in such a volatile climate. In a recent interview Kathy Bachmann, General Manager of Americas in a global consultancy company, Analytic Partners Inc., shared her opinion on a few strategic problems that suddenly appeared on marketers’ agenda. The trend of growing online sales and lower offline sales, that had been around before the pandemic, has strengthened even further over the last month. Even though customers will return to regular shops once everything gets back to normal, the increasing shift to e-commerce will not go away, so it makes sense to focus on developing this capability. Taking into account the impact on media consumption, consumer mobility and supply chains, it’s necessary to review and adjust some marketing mixes companies currently use. Marketers need to wisely, but quickly plan every next move to benefit from any arising opportunities or mitigate losses. There is no universal strategy, so changes will vary from business to business: some advertisers need to boost spends while others should keep… Read more »

Samsung lays off employees after an internal audit

In Spring 2019, Samsung Electronics Co, a South Korean tech giant, audited its American marketing department for any internal policies violations concerning dealings with business partners and following that laid off a number of employees. While routine audits is a common practice, they have been on the rise recently due to extremely topical transparency issues. As you might remember, in 2016 the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) revealed a study by K2 Intelligence on behind-the-scene rebates and media buying processes in the US, that dropped like a bomb in the marketing industry community setting in motion the FBI investigation and dramatic changes. According to ANA’s “Trust Report” the trust between clients and agencies has declined by 28% over the last three years. To deal with this problem some major advertisers established in-house marketing teams that would act in the best of their interests, that’s exactly what Procter&Gamble did and managed to save $750 mln on advertising in 2018. ANA also founded a Trust Consortium that should set new standards for the industry and achieve necessary level of transparency in digital media supply chain. Among spheres that were audited as a part of this internal probe are dealings between marketing department… Read more »

Increase your Marketing Mix Transparency

Transparency has been a burning issue since the 2016 scandal, but the industry is changing to solve any emerging challenges. Here you will learn what major factors contribute to this problem and how to address them effectively. In an April 2019 article, Forbes covers the issue of transparency and executive level visibility of marketing spend and offers advice on how to solve this problem. Since large companies worldwide invest more than $1 trillion annually into an increasing mix of marketing assets, media and technology, this money should be spent wisely and to the best advantage of the company. But you may be surprised at the fact that most CEOs and financial executives have too little visibility into this marketing spend, most of them don’t know how efficient the investments into sponsorship programs, digital media and technology are. It happens because finance and marketing departments currently don’t cooperate at the necessary level to improve tracking, classification and accounting for marketing spending. This lack of cooperation prevents companies from accurately measuring the efficiency of such investments. As a result CMOs are under pressure from their CEOs and have to spend additional billions of dollars to prove the value of marketing. Even though it’s necessary… Read more »

Advertising trends in India 2019

  The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) together with Ernst & Young published a 300-page report on current state and future prospects of Indian Media and Entertainment sectors. This article is an overview of trends concerning advertising. India is a large and fast growing market, in 2014 it surpassed the United States, the EU, and China in terms of real GDP growth and has been steadily maintaining such level ever since. When it comes to media market, it’s a very diverse and the fastest growing sector of Indian economy that attracts a lot of investors. And the most effective sphere of M&E that provides major part of the revenue is advertising, which is expected to grow even more in the upcoming years. If we compare the Indian ad spend in terms of percentage of GDP to that of other large economies, we’ll see that India spends about twice less money on advertising than Japan or China, so there is room for a considerable growth. On the whole, there is a clear shift towards digital channels, which now account for 21% of all ad spends in India. And the figure will go up when more safety measures… Read more »