INSIDERADIO
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015
Another weekend, another two feet of snowfall in parts of New England. The latest storm no doubt brought more weather trigger ads to the airwaves. But the future of weather-trigger advertising may be changing, and programmatic buying is the culprit. "The strategy remains sound — it’s smart for a business to react to what’s happening in the real world," Initiative managing director of investment Christine Peterson says.
"It’s easy to do on radio, but new digital capabilities allow us to turn media volume on and off literally by the data trigger that doesn’t even require people to pull the levers." The snowy path leads back to big data as marketers can now crunch all sorts of numbers to decide where an ad buy lands. Take the dryer sheet brand that Peterson says monitors a market’s humidity. When it falls to a certain level, the ads start appearing. Computer-to-computer buying, where "if/then" parameters are plugged in, allows the execution to happen in the blink of an eye. "It can happen while I go and have dinner with my family rather than be a manual buy modification," Peterson explains, pointing out weather is just one type of data trigger buyers can pull. The strategy has already been used during the Super Bowl, World Cup and on award show red carpets for brands that aren’t the typical weather trigger users. "Any trigger that moves the business, we need to find ways to leverage that data to deliver media against it," Peterson says.
What data triggers mean for radio. Data-driven programmatic ad buys have largely been limited to online, but they’re hitched to the march of machine-based buying technology across all media. It’s a reason Initiative managing director of investment Christine Peterson thinks radio needs to embrace programmatic buying. "By no means am I indicating that audiences are declining in radio — they’re still there," she says. "But if we can find those same people in a channel that can be activated much more quickly and cost efficiently, then maybe the strategy will be used elsewhere unless radio reacts to the current buying marketplace." Marketers are also increasingly looking at programmatic triggers to change creative copy. Take a lawn care company that could use preset weather data to run a commercial that referenced a morning shower to tell homeowners it’s a good time to spread grass seed. Marketing officers are under growing pressure to link advertising and sales data, and they’ve given their marching orders to media planners. "Any trigger that moves the business — we need to find ways to leverage that data to deliver media against," Peterson says. Broadcasters may be warily eying programmatic buying as a way to drive down rates, but Peterson thinks there will also be a role for the traditional radio rep. "There are things that will never be programmatic, like in-depth integrated partnerships that still take intelligence and more time than anything," she says. "We’d rather spend our time on things that are big, high-impact partnerships, knowing that the more standard units can be automated."
Retailers may feel better about buying radio ads in 2015. Retail is a critical radio ad category and the National Retail Federation is projecting shop owners will have a good year. The trade group forecasts retail sales will increase 4.1% in 2015. If accurate it would mark the biggest annual growth since 2011 when retail sales for the year increased 5.1%. "The economy appears to finally have gained some real traction after a somewhat turbulent 2014," NRF chief economist Jack Kleinhenz says. Even so, he sees a few "wild cards" like the price of gas. Consumers may be having the same doubts. The U.S. Commerce Department said last week that retail sales slid 0.8% during January. "We aren’t quite out of the woods," NRF president Matthew Shay concedes. But he thinks retailers are facing "far fewer obstacles" than they did a year ago. "The ingredients are there for a more sustained and robust expansion," Shay said.
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