COMMENTARY

Future Of Agency Business Is With Small And Mid-Sized Regionals

• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, April 25, 2019

Advertising and media agencies will be around for decades to come, but the future is much more likely to be defined by small and mid-sized regional shops than in the large, global, marketing services holding companies.

There’s no question agencies have been under an enormous amount of pressure over the past decade. Digitization, globalization, holding company acquisitions and changing consumer behaviors all conspired to undermine agency operating models that had been built and operated profitably on decades-old historical models.

Net. Net. What was created in the “Mad Men” era kept working well for years and years, until it didn’t.

Many folks today are predicting the demise of the agency. They point to the disruptions I mentioned earlier, the lukewarm support the industry gets on Wall Street, and the aggressive competitive moves being made by management consulting firms like Accenture. 

I don’t believe that agencies are going away. Here are some of my reasons why:

Marketing services outsourcing will always be a part of the business. I believe that marketers and advertisers will continue to outsource many critical functions, like market research, strategy, media planning and buying, ad creation and organizational planning to outside firms for many years to come. Not all will outsource all functions. Some will outsource no functions. However, clients’ needs, the outsourcing practice and the long-term existence of healthy, vibrant agencies will continue for decades in the future.

Many industry problems may stem from decades of global consolidation of agencies. A lot of value (and wealth) was captured by agency founders when they sold their agencies to bigger agencies, and eventually to global holding companies. This didn’t necessarily mean their clients got better service.

It did mean that a lot of agency profits had to be taken out of the agency to pay overhead fees, to pay down debt, and to pay dividends and increasing stock prices to ever-hungry public investors. 

This also made it much harder for the acquired agencies to be nimble, to do the right thing for each and every client and to argue for specialized fees when the trend was to offer “efficient” global fees. For good, and then for bad, what began as a collection of high-value, boutique consultancies became merchant banks.

Small and mid-sized regional independents are reasserting themselves. As the large holding companies show weakness — reducing their levels of service, laying off great talent, entering into opaque deals that undermine their clients’ trust — small and mid-sized, regional independents are stepping up. 

Many are no longer just winning business with regional accounts, but are winning big engagements with big marketers, proving that “scale” as preached for the past decades can now be delivered (and overcome) with superior talent, expertise, software, nimbleness and customer service.

Digital expertise is no longer concentrated in large cities. The most important factor in being a great agency is no longer having a big, global balance sheet and a public listing. It is about having the best talent. 

For years, large agencies have been bleeding a lot of their great talent. Holding company agencies in large cities used to have a monopoly on the best digital talent. No more. Digital expertise is now everywhere, and a lot of younger folks who started their careers at large city agencies are now moving to smaller cities as they start families and look for more control over their careers.

Software is eating the differences between big and small, in small’s favor.From retail to publishing to communications to logistics, we have seen small, smart and nimble companies eat their competition through the application of software. 

The same thing is happening in the agency world. Today, large holding company agencies are akin to mainframe computers in a world that has already shifted to personal computers and is soon to be dominated by smartphones and apps. 

In this world, the power is in the idea, its application and the service that backs it up. Unconstrained, innovation is happening all across the country — and world — at small shops solving big problems with big ideas, big hearts and big brains amplified through software, and it’s just getting started.

What do you think? Are small and mid-sized regional independents, armed with software, ready to take on the global Goliaths of their world?

TV's Surprising Spring: Climate Isn’t the Only Thing Changing this Season

Commentary from MediaBizVillages

Ed Martin April 29, 2019 TV's Surprising Spring: Climate Isn’t the Only Thing Changing this Season TV / VIDEO DOWNLOAD When did April become the new September?  Right now, there is more compelling programming on advertiser-supported broadcast and basic cable TV than at any time since the start of the 2018-19 television season.  How interesting that the networks (and other programming services) have chosen springtime to showcase so much of their finest work.  I wonder what the thought process is?  Spring is here.  Summer is coming.  Baseball season has begun.  It would seem that the last thing people really want to focus on at this time of year is television, unless it’s mindless fun (a warm-weather category NBCU owns with America’s Got Talent and American Ninja Warrior). To continue reading scroll down or view this article on MediaVillage.com While it is true that the May sweeps period has always been vital, at least to the broadcasters, for viewers who invested time in television March and April used to be a time of disappointing returns, if not relative rest.  No more.  In the new world order of television entertainment there can be no down time.  But not even that understanding fully explains why TV is most excellent right now. Let’s start with the basic cable landscape.  FX recently debuted a sparkling study in sophisticated storytelling with the limited series Fosse/Verdon, along with the second season of the comedy Better Things (now better than before) and one of the most original comedies ever to grace any platform, the vampirific What We Do in the Shadows.  (Is it me, or does the cast of this show appear to be having more fun than the cast of any of TV series anywhere?) IFC just launched the third season of its egregiously underrated Brockmire, a show that works better than most when it plays straight outrageous comedy, much less so when it forces too much drama into its stories (as it did at the end of season two). National Geographic is prepping its riveting limited series The Hot Zone – the TCA press session for which left over 200 journalists in a state of high anxiety.  (Editor’s note: Wash your hands as often as possible and keep your distance from sneezing people.) With one notable exception (hint: it has dragons) there is nothing quite as exciting on TV right now as the second season of BBCA’s thrilling Killing Eve. Even premium cable is getting into the act.  HBO recently chose to flex its muscle in a way it hasn’t since the glory years of The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Six Feet Under with the final seasons of the mighty Game of Thrones (pictured at top) and the political comedy Veep.  In tandem with the second season of the award-magnet Barry, these shows are collectively providing a massive promotional platform for HBO’s next two behemoths:  The second season of Big Little Lies (now with Meryl Streep) and the limited series Chernobyl. Broadcast isn’t exactly snoozing at the moment, either. CBS on Sunday launched a four-part limited series titled The Red Line -- from Ava Duvernay, Greg Berlanti, Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss -- which will undoubtedly be one of the most controversial and hotly debated series of the season, if the audience finds it.  Sunday nights are brutal right now. PBS faces a similar challenge with its current Sunday night limited series, a detailed and difficult but richly rewarding adaptation of Victor Hugo’s timeless novel Les Miserables, starring Dominic West, David Oyelowo and Lily Collins.  The book was written in 1862.  What took TV so long? ABC’s American Idol (also on Sunday!) and NBC’s The Voice are both in their live phases, and even though these franchises are aging they still bring a distinct energy to television.  Many people are declaring that Idol has the most talented top ten group this season in its very long history.  I can’t tell.  They have all sounded good to me. The CW chose this time to run the final season of Jane the Virgin, which is wrapping up in fine style by returning to the Rafael-Jane-Michael love triangle that started it all, albeit from a radically new perspective.  (Michael died several years ago but, in a typical telenovela twist, turned out not to be so dead after all.)  The network also recently debuted (and then renewed) In the Dark, a, well, dark drama about a blind woman wrestling with her demons while investigating her friend’s murder that is quite unlike anything else on The CW (which is really saying something).  Big surprises are coming on this show in a few weeks.  Also, CW just wrapped Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with a satisfying finale followed by a concert special featuring its talented cast that was itself a departure from the norm. It’s worth noting that Telemundo is currently enjoying huge success with the recent return after an eight-year absence of the sizzling telenovela sensation La Reina de Sur, giving all other networks a run for their ratings. Streaming doesn’t really count in these matters, since their viewers are trained to set their own viewing schedules now, then or whenever they wish.  But it is worth noting that ad-supported CBS All Access, which premieres episodes of its original series one week at a time, chose this time of year to release season three of its hit The Good Fight, one of television’s finest dramas, and season one of its revival of one of television’s all-time best shows, The Twilight Zone.  Elsewhere, Hulu has been doing the same with its fact-based drama The Act, already a serious awards contender.

Relaxing Local Ownership Caps Would Harm AM Radio, Says MMTC

Relaxing Local Ownership Caps Would Harm AM Radio, Says MMTC

Organization said relaxation will discourage minority ownership and undo incubator efforts

SUSAN ASHWORTH ⋅ 4 HOURS AGO

The onus to boost diversity in today’s broadcast ownership falls squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Communications Commission, said the Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council — and the 2018 Quadrennial Review gives the commission an opening to take action.

That sentiment was expressed by MMTC as part of the record being gathered by the FCC. The commission is in the midst of re-reviewing three of its broadcast ownership rules as part of the Quadrennial Review: the local radio ownership rule, the local television ownership rule and the dual network rule.

When it comes to broadcast ownership, the organization said that the commission has effectively depressed minority ownership for five decades, pointing to a recent article by MMTC President Emeritus David Honig that outlines how the FCC has “deliberately and systematically kept minorities almost entirely out of broadcasting for 50 years.” Some of the commission’s actions continue to this day, the MMTC said, “through [the commission’s] failure to remedy the lingering effects of its past history.”

When it comes to proposed changes to the local radio ownership rule, MMTC said the priority must be on welcoming new voices rather than taking the step of lifting local ownership caps. According to the organization, lifting subcaps would benefit only a tiny handful of broadcasters — those who have been able to acquire enough stations in a market to bump up against the local ownership cap. 

In large markets where the need for new voices is the greatest, there are only a few groups that would benefit from consolidation changes, MMTC said. “A benefit for these few companies would come entirely at the expense of others who entered the industry late or have yet to enter — including nearly all of the nation’s minority, women and aspiring broadcasters,” MMTC said in its filing. “Greater consolidation would suppress the development of the new voices the industry needs the most for its survival in the face of new competition.”

The organization agrees that radio broadcasters are facing increased competition for ad dollars but said the solution cannot be found through consolidation. Rather, the solution is more diversity, more new entry by innovators and more new voices, the organization said.

“[T]he successful answer to the competitive challenge presented by online media must be found in innovation and local service — not in more consolidation,” MMTC said.

The organization highlighted a Radio World guest commentary that said that horizontal deregulation in the form of greater FM ownership would eviscerate AM stations’ value and marketability.

“How would buying an additional four or five radio stations in a market allow a broadcaster to take on Google or Facebook?” wrote African American broadcaster Glenn Cherry and Latino broadcaster Ronald Gordon in Radio World. “To the advertiser, what difference does it make who owns the station? Horizontal deregulation just shuffles the deck in favor of the big guys; it does nothing to improve radio’s ability to compete with big tech.” 

Changing the subcap rules would also jeopardize the FCC’s incubator program, which is designed to encourage larger, experienced broadcasters to assist small, aspiring broadcasters to get a foothold in the market. An increase in the subcaps would remove any incentive for a broadcaster to participate in incubator program, MMTC said.

“[L]ifting the caps or subcaps will effectively kill the incubator program just at the time when the industry needs the incubator program the most for revitalization and diversification, and just at the time when the commission is relying on that program as its preferred method for meeting its responsibility to advance diversity in broadcast ownership,” the organization said.

MMTC also pointed to concerns over dominant radio groups migrating to the FM band, thus diminishing AM traffic and the value of AM radio.

“Elimination of the subcap rule would undermine all of the commission’s efforts to revitalize AM radio,” the organization said, echoing sentiments made to the commission by the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. “The requests to eliminate that rule must be denied.”

COMMENTARY

CCPA: Turning Pain Into Progress

• by Pam Erlichman , 3 hours ago

The California Consumer Privacy Act, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, will bring about a seismic change to the use of data in U.S. marketing. Though its rights apply only to consumers in California, it will have far-ranging implications for companies beyond the Golden State -- and the CCPA is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to data privacy legislation at both a state and federal level.

Any marketer’s first response to the CCPA is likely negative: fear over its potential impact on the effectiveness of ads, and stress and frustration with the new demands of compliance.

However, marketers will be much better served to take a different approach to the new policy, looking at it as an opportunity for game-changing progress rather than a set of boxes that need to be checked. Companies that seek only to keep up with the new regulations will fall behind those forward-thinking companies who choose to use the CCPA as a springboard to their own better, more effective data practices.

What’s Happening?

The explosion of data usage in marketing has often resembled the Wild West, with marketers purchasing data from questionable sources, in turn achieving questionable results.

The CCPA introduces concrete restrictions on the use of consumer data, giving consumers the right to know what companies will do with their information, as well as the right to view, delete, or opt out of the sale of their data. These obligations will require companies to disclose their practices at any point where personal information is collected, and it will mandate that they be operationally equipped to meet consumer requests with regard to the sale of their data.

CCPA requirements don’t just apply to companies with a physical footprint in California as for-profit companies which collect or sell the data of Californians will also need to comply, depending on the scope of their business. Estimates anticipate around 500,000 companies will be affected by the legislation

A Privilege, Not a Right

As a result, the CCPA offers a valuable opportunity for marketers to refine their standards and practices for collecting and selling data—in California and beyond. Most importantly, they must bear in mind the fundamental change of data’s role in the marketing ecosystem. While previously functioning as a commodity that can be bought and sold, from the perspective of CCPA, data must now be viewed as a privilege granted by consumers to marketers that can be revoked at any moment. If enough consumers rescind that privilege, it will have disastrous effects for marketers, badly hurting the reliability of third-party data and severely limiting the effectiveness of targeted ads.

While painful in the short-term, consumers’ newfound power forces marketers to abandon objectionable data practices and focus instead on explicit first-party data -- far more accurate information that yields more actionable marketing insights. And the new data dynamic forces an implicit value exchange, in which the consumer is incented to provide information in exchange for a better customer experience.

What’s Next?

While CCPA stands at the vanguard of data privacy legislation, it’s a near certainty that marketers will face new regulations in other states and possibly even at the federal level. During these early stages when CCPA is the only game in town, marketers must stake out an aggressive forward-looking position, with healthy consumer-first data practices and strategies. Embracing the new world of consumer data rights will allow companies to take control of their marketing destiny, instead of adjusting to each new law and playing catch-up in a constantly shifting regulatory environment.

TV SETS

Samsung Introduces A TV Set That Lets You Watch Vertically, Aimed At Millennials

• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, 2 hours ago

 

If you can understand why someone would want a vertical TV, you just might be a millennial.

That’s the crowd Samsung is appealing to as it unveils the Sero TV in Korea. It lets users mirror the video they have on their mobile phone screen onto the vertical screen.

And if they want to watch TV the way everybody else does, the Sero swivels into a horizontal (or landscape) mode, just like a smartphone -- but much bigger, of course.

The 43-inch Sero is priced at about $1,600 in Korean currency, starting in May.  It is not being made available in the U.S. yet.

A lot of video watched on mobile devices is watched in the vertical mode, as are most games. As mobile video becomes more prevalent, the vertical TV might make sense to some.

Research confirms that  94% of users hold their smartphones in the vertical position, and a separate 2017 study also says 72% of users watch smartphone videos that way too. And that’s true when they use social media as well.

“Samsung Electronics analyzed the characteristics of the millennial generation, which is familiar with mobile content, and presented a new concept TV. . .  which is based on the vertical screen, unlike the conventional TV,”  says Samsung’s English-language press announcement, which seems to suggest that while the Sero is going on the market, how Korean millennials respond to it will govern how excited Samsung becomes.

The Sero also comes with a 4.1-channel, 60-watt speaker, which can be used to play online music services, including Samsung Music.

And when it’s not being used as a TV, the Sero can be used to present art pieces, photos or as a music visualizer. It comes in a dark blue stand that seems, in photos, to resemble an easel.

The Sero was announced along with updated versions of two existing products, The Serif and The Frame, that have updated looks and new OLED pictures.

How Sales Engagement Solves 7 Major Business Pain Points

How Sales Engagement Solves 7 Major Business Pain Points

Mon, 04/22/2019 - 06:49

Authors: Manny Medina, Max Atschuler and Mark Kosoglow

The days of old-school communications have passed. In their stead, we have new modern sales communications that are data-driven, personalized, relevant, omnichannel, sequenced, and fully optimized for today’s sophisticated buyer. The following are the seven major business pain points solved by sales engagement:

Business Pain Point #1: Not Optimizing for the Modern Buyer

Selling to buyers the way they like to be sold to is not a novel concept, yet with all the channels in existence today, it’s not as simple as it sounds. From new forms of communication (hello, texting) to generation gaps between baby boomers and millennials (and welcome, gen Z), there are more selling factors than ever before. Then there are factors like the role of the person you’re trying to reach. For example, a sales professional or executive might respond better to mobile-based messaging because they live on their phones and are never at their computers. This might be a text or short LinkedIn message. At the same time, an operations or IT professional might work out of two screens and prefer only screen-based communications like longer emails or value-driven content like e-books or whitepapers. Throw in the fact that traditional channels are more saturated than ever before, and you have a recipe for poor performance if you’re not optimizing your sales process for the modern buyer.

Business Pain Point #2: Lack of Revenue Efficiency

As we alluded to at the beginning of the book, Sales organizations are under unprecedented pressure. Quotas are the highest they’ve ever been. Resources are at their leanest. So how can you achieve success within a modern Sales org? By achieving peak Revenue Efficiency—that is, getting the maximum return for the minimal amount of resources invested. Revenue Efficiency isn’t an abstract term; it’s a practical (and achievable) goal for every Sales and Marketing leader. But with so many variables and levers, how and where do you start to ensure your team maximizes results with the minimum resource expenditure? Revenue Efficiency encompasses the following:

§  How to evaluate your org structure to support better Sales and Marketing alignment

§  How to leverage joint attribution to create an efficient, collaborative environment

§  How to bypass vanity metrics in favor of low-funnel, revenue oriented analysis

§  Finding the right bridge technology to boost efficiency and streamline workflows

Sales Engagement is a powerful ally in the quest for Revenue Efficiency. Sales Engagement offers traditional metrics like volume of sales activities, but it doesn’t stop there. Sales Engagement offers true revenue attribution, meaning it shows not just sales activity but also whether that activity resulted in revenue. This killer differentiator means predictable revenue goes from a pipe dream to a pipeline reality.

Business Pain Point #3: The Manual Nature of Sales and Why Reps Have So Little Time to Sell

We’ve all read the statistic, from CSO Insights, about how sellers spend only 36% of their time selling. Burdensome administrative tasks and sales technology that can be described only as user-unfriendly are some of the main culprits behind this lack of meaningful activity. Sales Engagement empowers a rep to do more activity in less time, thanks to capabilities like automated email follow-up (a transformative time-saver within itself) and automated meeting reschedules. Sales Engagement means if it doesn’t require specialized strategic work, a rep is not wasting valuable time on it. This new category of technology also empowers reps to work smarter, not harder, with blueprints for success like winning email templates and sales scripts so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. As an added benefit, a good Sales Engagement Platform (SEP) is actually created with the end user in mind, which should make for an even better buying experience for your next potential customer.

Business Pain Point #4: Lack of Consistent, Repeatable Data-driven Processes

Most sales leaders want to build a reliable machine. They want to know with reasonable certainty that if they put X amount of raw materials in one side of the machine, Y will come out the other side. In a modern sales environment, the only way to do that is to create consistent, repeatable processes and playbooks. There’s a defined set of playbooks that are used consistently for handling inbound leads, doing outbound prospecting, closing new business, and managing relationships with current customers.

Business Pain Point #5: Improving New Hire Time to Value

Improving new sales rep ramp time, even by a small fraction, can be a major game changer. In an enterprise Sales org, new rep ramp times are typically months. It can be even half a year or longer! Imagine if all your reps could hit quotas even just one month earlier. That would be significant boost in revenue for your business. This is just another area where optimization comes into play. In order to optimize new rep ramp, you need a repeatable, scalable data-driven process that can be easily replicated. Get your whole team hitting quota, and hitting it sooner, without any extra admin or effort from their managers and execs. That’s the goal, and that’s what’s possible.

Business Pain Point #6: Lack of Data to Drive Business Decisions

In the modern era of sales, gut is just not good enough anymore. Your competitors are using machine-learning, natural language-programming, powered data to make informed decisions. So when the board or the boss asks about this quarter’s numbers, don’t be the one leaving it to chance. Data and tech have arrived. There are no excuses anymore, but there are things that have your back. Data that tell a story without bias. People can talk the talk, but numbers walk the walk, and they’ll save your job one day. Never make an informed, strictly gut decision in your sales process again.

Business Pain Point #7: Tech Stack Troubles

Why dial number by number when you can use software that’ll save you time? Why email from your inbox when there’s software that can track and measure response rates, set up multivariable tests for subject lines and copy, and allow you to share best practices across the team? Why not be centralized? Why not allow reps to automate menial tasks that take away from selling time? The money you spend on sales software will be returned to you in spades when productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness are through the roof. It’s one of the few functions in a company where this is so insanely important. We are in the dawn of a new day. The sales tech stack has arrived. CRM, phone, and e-mail are no longer enough. The days of the Sales Engagement Platform are here. Don’t get stuck in the dark ages.

This article is excerpted from “The New Rules of Sales Engagement” by Manny Medina, Max Atschuler and Mark Kosoglow of Outreach, providers of a sales engagement platform.

Commentary

How To Crack The Youth Market: Lessons From Razor Brands

• by Jess Watts , April 18, 2019

“Game-changer,” “inspiring” and “empowering” are not the terms that usually come to mind when thinking about a device that removes body hair. But for Gen Z (ages 10–24), razor brands have become just that.
Companies like Gillette, Billie, Harry’s, and Schick are killing it when it comes to marketing to this next wave of young adults, in large part because they have recognized key generational differences in how Gen Z navigates the world and have adapted accordingly.

Here are three insights from this category that advertisers and marketers in all industries can use to make the cut with our new and discerning customers, Gen Z.

Razor brands understand that Z has a complicated relationship with labeling their many identities
One of the most salient insights from my research with Gen Z was how complicated the nature of identity is. Representing as the most diverse generation in American history (according to Pew research) Z-ers have found a rich new lexicon in which to describe their multi-faceted identities. While being able to put your identity into words can be empowering, there was also discomfort with the limitations that labels bring and having to act according to someone else’s definition.

Schick feels decidedly with the times with its "The Man I Am" campaign, which features Z men, all found from their original YouTube content, and all champions of modern masculinity. The brand doesn’t dare try and say who they are, or what real men look like or must do — it lets them do the talking.
When talking to Gen Z, brands should take note: They aren’t interested in your marketing labels and need space to declare their complicated identities.
Razor brands know Gen Z is passionate about social issues, but are looking for others to do the talking
A group of student researchers in Oklahoma defined their generation as the “Repost Generation.” They summed it up as “Younger generations opt to share (retweet, repost, etc.) extreme opinions on social media rather than directly post their opinions, over fear of discourse in a hyper-tense social environment.”
They were passionate about their beliefs, but not willing to take up the bullhorn. Maddy C., a 16-year-old YouTube creator, told us, “I feel like disagreeing with people makes us very nervous because we’re afraid of losing friends.”

When brands take up the mantle of controversial causes, Z-ers feels they are voicing their support for their beliefs by supporting the brand — but with added safety. Though Gillette’s controversial ad tackling toxic masculinity felt squarely aimed at an enabling, older demographic in execution, the bold message was relevant message for Z, and its popularity with this age group increased, according to YPulse studies.

Gen Z is most comfortable when communicating in visuals. In our research on this cohort’s Tinder habits, we found a greater comfort in using emojis than writing bios.


Knowing this, razor companies have redesigned their product. They’ve produced matte-handled, gold-gilded, choose-your-own-color-palette razors, in delightful packaging. Their social content turns bath time and self-care into a branded way of life. Billie invites women to share photos of their body hair to “fuzzy up the internet.”

If a razor and armpit hair can be artistic and ‘gramworthy to Gen Z, there really is no excuse for the rest of us. If brands want to resonate with Z, they’re going to have to revamp the look of their product and packaging to have content potential.

As new generations are often the bellwethers of cultural change, it’s worth taking notes from these razor brands’ playbook. Gen Z is raising the bar for marketers; hopefully we’ll follow these personal care innovators and “razor standards” to meet them.

Nielsen Warns Census Change Would Hurt Media Business

Multichannel News

Nielsen Warns Census Change Would Hurt Media Business

Accuracy threatened by controversial citizenship question....

Author: Jon Lafayette

Apr 22, 2019

Nielsen is going public with its concern that if a controversial question about citizenship is added to the U.S. Census, the result would be an undercounting which would affect the media industry and other businesses.

“This is something that we think is near and dear to our heart at Nielsen,” said Christine Pierce, senior vice president of data science at Nielsen. "It’s so important. It’s really critical to our $90 billion advertising and media industry that they understand that what underpins all that commerce and all of those trades is this data and it could be inaccurate for an entire decade if this question were to be added.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday (April 23) is expected to hear arguments about whether the new question, asking whether the members of a household are citizens, can be included on the 2020 census form.

Nielsen has already filed an amicus brief with the court, stating its position on the issue.
“This was a question that was added without the proper testing and without going through the proper testing,” Pierce said. “As a result we believe that there is a very high likelihood that we could see an undercount. Having an undercount has an impact on us. It has an impact on our clients and the media business as a whole.”

Nielsen benchmarks its measurements — from its television universe estimates, to determining the composition of its ratings panel, to its local market rankings — against the census. Pierce said there’s no substitute for an accurate census.

“While there’s lots of different sources of data out there, there just no replacement for an accurate census,” she said.

Pierce said Nielsen is certain that adding the citizenship question would result in an undercount, but that Nielsen has not estimated how big that undercount would be.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, an analysis by the Census Bureau found that 5.8% of households with a noncitizen would not respond to the census if the citizenship question were added. That would mean 6.5 million people left uncounted.

The undercount would affect some demographics more than others.

“The question itself is likely to impact multicultural segments,” Pierce said, adding that it would “have a ripple effect into communities where multicultural populations live.”

In its brief to the Supreme Court, Nielsen said “a reduction in the accuracy of the census occasioned by the addition of the citizenship question would have lasting negative consequences for American business. Particularly troubling is the possibility that a potential undercount of non-citizen or minority households will result in an underweighting of those households’ preferences.”

If the citizenship question does get into the census, Nielsen said it will try to find ways to calibrate the data to make it more accurate, but it would be a harder process.

Business groups, including the Association of National Advertisers, have come out against the change in the census. “Census counts need to be as accurate as possible to help ANA members optimize their marketing investments,” the association said.

Outside of business, the citizenship issue is a partisan one, with the Trump administration looking to slow immigration. The results of the new census will affect how areas are represented in congress and how much money is spent on services in areas that embrace noncitizens.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments, Nielsen will be communicating with the industry about the issue.

“We don't see this as a political issue at all, actually," Pierce said. "We see this as a matter of science. So the Census Data the decennial census in particular, is really the foundation of the data that we use and the data that we provide to our clients.”