COMMENTARY

Embracing Psychology in A Post-Keyword Age

• by Brooke Abbott , May 10, 2024

The following was previously published in an earlier edition of Marketing Insider.

Pay-per-click has relied on the precise and strategic use of keywords, forming the foundation of campaigns and signaling user intent. Marketers have spent countless hours understanding search intent based on keywords to build successful campaigns. Measuring keywords as an indicator of success has only furthered marketers' reliance on keywords as measures of success. As Google encourages its proprietary AI measurement solutions to improve consumer privacy, we will no longer measure performance as 1:1 to keywords.

Additionally, Google’s pressure to limit transparency and control is a standard frustration among paid search professionals. For example, PMAX campaigns have sunsetted the need for keywords.

Alongside this, Google has provided low visibility into ad placements. With the release of PMAX, the writing is on the wall, and the loss of keywords is on the horizon.

What’s our option when keywords die? The answer is evident: audiences. The solution is to prioritize the underlying psychological drivers of customers in your paid search strategies. An audience-based approach will safeguard your paid search strategy when keywords are extinct.

Why Audience-First Strategy is Crucial for Paid Search Success

Audience segments, like in-market or affinity lists, have been secondary factors in understanding intent. We must start rethinking how we approach search intent: audiences first, keywords second. Search demand will begin to mimic other higher funnel strategies, relying on context and behavioral cues. How can we begin to humanize our customers in the paid search space? One tool is Resonate, an AI-based research item that surfaces insight into customer psychographics, supporting an audience-based approach.

Consider this: when did you last spend over five seconds before feeling or taking action? We are programmed to avoid harm and discomfort because of our primitive unconscious brain. “Probably 95% of all cognition, all the thinking that drives our decisions and behaviors, occurs unconsciously—and that includes consumer decision,” Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman told the Harvard Business Review.

If 95% of our actions are based on automatic judgments and attitudes, how customers respond to our presence online is fundamental in driving actions: For us, that’s ad copy and landing pages.

Section: Crafting Effective Copy for Targeting Audience Intent Buying

Preparing for audience intent buying in paid search begins with ad copy. Do not assume you know what your customers’ unconscious beliefs are; your assumptions are likely incorrect. With the right ad copy, we can create a feedback loop for Google to serve ads to the right customers.

Our team tested this theory and observed promising results by including a persona-focused copy.

Next, craft consistent language from the ad to a landing page. Humans have limited processing power and often fail to think rationally. Lower the effort required to encourage conversions. If your ad copy promises something, don't force added effort on landing pages.

The death of keywords is not the end of PPC but the beginning of a more intuitive, human-centric approach. Getting curious about your customers is the first step. Then comes investing in solutions that reveal the human behind the device. Ensure your business has first-party data to establish audiences. Second, develop content and copy that addresses those audiences in your campaigns. This will give you the upper hand against algorithms.

COMMENTARY

Is Sinclair Looking to Back Out of Local TV? Not Entirely

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 9 hours ago

Sinclair Inc. -- one of the biggest U.S. TV station groups -- wants to get smaller, perhaps by 30%, according to reports.

Is this a sign of bigger moves to come for the company?

Some time ago, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley mused that the company might consider selling undervalued businesses, “de-leveraging” assets. And in what may be one hint, he said: “We have no sacred cows.”

Well, there has been one sacred cow for the company: TV stations. Long before buying regional sports networks (Fox Corp), or even a cable sports network (Tennis Channel), Sinclair cut its media teeth with local TV station outlets.

Sinclair has around 185 U.S. TV stations in 86 markets -- second only to Nexstar Media Group, which has over 200 stations in 117 markets.

Reports suggest Sinclair would still retain 70% of those TV stations, as well as its majority stake in its beleaguered Diamond Sports, its regional cable TV sports network group. 

It was in 2019 that it bought the former Fox owned regional sports network group (through Disney) for $10 billion.

Now, five years later, it is a shell of what it was -- due to consumer cord-cutting and pay TV distributors' disinterest in carriage for these networks which yield slim to no profit margins. 

This all means that Sinclair needs to be more sharply focused on identifying the most and least productive business across the entire company.

TV stations for sale are estimated to comprise a broad mix of major TV network affiliates (Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, and the CW) in mid-size markets that could fetch some $1.6 billion.

We all know the trend lines here: Massive changes in the linear TV landscape are occurring for both national and local TV outlets.

Cord-cutting has not just affected all cable TV and broadcast networks, but TV stations of all types.

A major focus for local TV stations -- especially those that are struggling -- can be the crucial distribution and carriage fees.

Also, as core TV advertising has been a weak growth business, TV stations are increasingly dependent on the bump those outlets get from political advertising revenues every other year (Midterm and Presidential election years) which can result in healthy quarterly financial reports.

For Sinclair, slimming down its legacy TV business to the most productive TV stations then makes sense.  

The next question is what those TV stations will mean to their associated broadcast TV networks, amid their own issues when it comes to cord-cutting. 

The question is how fast change will take place. The forest of live, linear TV isn't just slowly thinning -- big branches are being taken down.

 Something else to share with your direct clients. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

COMMENTARY

How To Advertise in an Election Year

• by Kambrya Blake , 3 hours ago

During election years, advertising spaces become battlegrounds of competing political messages.

From television commercials interrupting prime-time shows to sponsored posts infiltrating social media feeds, the saturation of political ads across traditional and digital channels is undeniable.

As a result, businesses must accept the challenge of capturing their target audience’s focus.

This is no small feat. Ad spending from political advertising alone is projected to increase by $12.32 billion this year, according to a report by research firm Insider Intelligence. And according to Forbes, “82% of B2C marketing executives in the U.S. have concerns about marketing… during this year’s election cycle.”

However, businesses can take steps to ensure continued awareness and engagement.

Navigating Ads, One Platform at a Time

One approach during the political push is to be selective about your platforms. EMarketer projects U.S. ad spending to continue a heavy CTV focus, with some sources citing as much as 45% of digital ad spending on CTV alone. This is important for companies to keep in mind when weighing the pros and cons of selecting an advertising platform.

Several digital media outlets have limited political advertising policies, helping combat ad fatigue. The following are some of the major players in the ad space who have taken a proactive stance against political advertising:

• Prohibiting political ads: Pinterest, LinkedIn, Amazon, and TikTok.
• Limited allowance: Reddit

While advertising on these websites can help avoid the political humdrum, you must still consider competition from businesses. it’s vital to recognize that the quality of your ads will directly impact your success.

Ad(d) Value

That brings us to our next strategy: increasing the quality of your ads. Implementing compelling storytelling and brand messaging can transform an advertisement from an interruption into a meaningful experience.

Imagine this scenario: you're watching TV, enduring a barrage of political smear campaigns during breaks. As you head to the kitchen, you're suddenly met by sounds of nature emanating from the television. You peek back to see Subaru's "A Beautiful Silence" commercial. At that moment, you feel a sense of calm. This stark contrast between an intrusive ad and one that adds value illustrates the power of storytelling in capturing audience attention and fostering positive brand associations.

Most platforms use an auction system to determine which ads are shown, so the more people engage with your ad, the more the platform sees it as valuable and charges you less to show and take action on it. By focusing on creating high-quality ads, you can compete effectively.

Don’t Forget Your Tried and Trues

It’s easier to convert an existing customer than to win a new one. Double down on retention and engagement strategies to ensure customers remain brand advocates. This might entail rewarding repeat customers with discounts, early access to new products, or points redeemable for rewards.

You can also leverage customer data to offer personalized recommendations, launch email campaigns, etc., to build stronger relationships. Businesses can encourage engagement by running contests related to your offerings on social media, and encourage user-generated content by offering incentives for sharing photos or reviews.

Focusing on these actionable steps can turn an existing customer base into brand ambassadors, ensuring continued success even during a politically charged advertising landscape.

 Something toshare with your automotive clients. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

AUTOMOTIVE

Brand Loyalty Wanes, Sustainability Becomes Key Buying Factor

• by Tanya Gazdik , 10 hours ago

Automotive marketers have an opportunity for nabbing conquest buyers like never before, according to a new report. 

Consumer loyalty is taking a backseat, with a staggering 82% of respondents open to switching brands, according to Teads in its latest global report, "Shifting Gears: Understanding the New Dynamics of Auto Buying Worldwide."

The research, conducted across 17 markets, aims to shed light on the key motivations and emerging trends for auto buyers around the world.

A significant portion of consumers (42%) are devoting two weeks or less to researching brands and models. To succeed in this environment, reaching consumers early and maintaining consistent engagement throughout their research journey is critical, according to the report. 

Sustainability is a key buying factor, with 42% of consumers solely considering hybrid or electric vehicles. However, this trend varies regionally. 

Consumers in Mexico, Brazil, and the U.S. are still showing a strong reliance on gas engines. Those in Italy and Spain are moving away from gas engines, but primarily focusing on hybrid options. France and Singapore consumers are showing the fastest adoption of both EVs and hybrids.

Buyers continue to do car research online, with 43% of those surveyed saying online resources are now more important than ever, and half of all car buyers beginning their research into different brands and models online. This digital showroom shift demands automakers prioritize a user-friendly and informative online presence. 

While online resources are crucial, car buyers still value trusted sources like manufacturer websites, according to the report. 

However, the power of online ads cannot be underestimated. They inspire  81% of consumers to take action, particularly younger demographics and EV considerers. 

What encourages users even more to consider a brand is to see it advertised across multiple screens (56%), highlighting the effectiveness of omnichannel marketing campaigns that combine online and TV advertising for a broader reach.

Given the shortened decision-making timeframe, maintaining an always on presence is crucial for automotive marketers, according to the report. Brands must engage potential buyers continually prior to and throughout their research journey, influencing them as the relevant set of options shrinks.

 Something to share with your direct clients. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

COMMENTARY

How Gen Z's Love for Stores Is Reshaping D2C Landscape

• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, May 6, 2024

Aerie stores are a favroite with Gen Z shoppers

While younger consumers’ love for digital brands and experiences has formed the bedrock of hundreds of direct-to-consumer companies, new data reveals how that’s changed.

About 31% of Gen Z now says that in-store shopping is how they prefer to buy fashion and accessories, the highest of any age group, and 41% like to shop in a hybrid way, using both in-store and digital. According to 2 Visions, the market research firm that conducted the research, that’s radically different from millennials, with only 19% favoring in-store and 66% preferring hybrid shopping for such purchases. (Gen X and baby boomer consumers closely mirror millennial choices.)

Yates Jarvis, principal at 2 Visions, says Gen Z gives three reasons for this preference. While fit is first, the second-most mentioned reason is for comparing two or more fashion and accessory items in person. “User experience is built around navigating a large selection to a single item,” he tells D2C Insider. “Comparison UX doesn’t exist for clothing.”

But importantly, Gen-Zers say they simply like browsing a store. “It’s the experience of getting out. Because they are digital natives, they might have had fewer of these experiences,” says Jarvis.

Yet industry perceptions persist that it’s older consumers favoring stores, despite post-COVID behavioral shifts.

“We often find senior executives are working off of data from a few years ago, if not decades ago,” Jarvis says.

Income plays a part in people’s channel preferences. Virtually all the study’s high-income respondents say they can access in-store shopping within 30 minutes. For those earning less than $50,000 per year, only 85% say they are able to do so.

The most hybridized shoppers are the most affluent, with 67% of those earning $100,000 or more per year saying they use both digital and physical.

In-store shopping habits are also impacted by where people live. And since Gen Z-ers are often renters in urban areas with many stores, these shoppers have more stores to enjoy.

But preferences aren’t that simple, adds Jarvis. For example, shoppers of all ages in the densel -populated Northeast region lead the nation in exclusively buying clothing online. However, they have a higher preference for in-store shopping for home décor and personal-care products. “It isn’t so much about the way they shop overall,” he says, “but the way they prefer to shop by category.”

What do these findings mean for all the retailers who can’t seem to lure Gen Z into their stores? For D2C brands now scrambling to open their own stores, should they go wholesale, or focus on pop-ups? “They keep thinking like businesses, and they go for scale,” Jarvis says, “often launching more stores than I would recommend.”

Instead, he believes retailers should consider each store an R&D lab. “They need to develop a better connection to Gen Z, in terms of research and intel, and then they need to have a better testing engine.”

Those small-scale efforts won’t drive much revenue at launch. “But the goal should be understanding the nuances of the experience that Gen Z wants, learning how to delight them. Retailers can’t keep rolling out the in-store experience of 10 years ago and expect it to work.”

Another disconnect, he says, is that department stores were “built on the power of brands, and that’s hurting them with Gen Z.” While previous generations were drawn to big national names, “Gen Z has much less interest in incumbent brands, and a much higher desire to trust up-and-comers.”

The company conducted the research, based on a survey of 2,400 U.S. shoppers, with Portless, a third-party logistics company.

Amazon Ads Expands Prime Video Interactive Ad Formats

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Looking to expand its e-commerce/digital consumer shopping experience, Amazon Ads will offer advertisers “shoppable carousel” TV advertising opportunities where viewers can shop multiple product variations via remote control during TV shows and/or movies advertising breaks on the Prime Video streaming service, including live sports.

 

This and other new interactive TV ad formats will be shown to media agency and advertising executives in New York City at Pier 36 during Amazon's streaming TV upfront presentation on May 14.

 

Other interactive ad formats will include “pause ads,” which occur when viewers press pause on their remotes. These will be “translucent” on-screen ads for product and other brand messaging, along with "Add to Cart" and "Learn More" on-screen options.

 

Also there will be interactive “brand trivia” ads -- messaging to help advertisers add more storytelling and “factoids” about their brands, where consumers can also purchase products directly and claim Amazon shopping credits and rewards.

 

All this expands on Amazon Ads’ existing interactive video ads formats, which started up in 2021, where consumers use TV remotes to make purchases and other actions.

 

Amazon interactive ad formats are available a majority of Amazon’s streaming TV businesses, including on TV shows, movies, and live sports on Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV Channels, and 3P streaming TV apps. 

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COMMENTARY 2 Content Lessons for Retailers from Top SaaS

COMMENTARY

2 Content Lessons for Retailers from Top SaaS

• by Colleen Jones , Yesterday

Retailers face more pressure than ever to offer their customers digital experiences that meet or exceed high expectations. Content is the substance of those digital experiences, so retailers need to get content right. Why not take inspiration from the pioneers of digital experience, SaaS (software as a service) companies?

Let’s consider why these companies are so good at content. From day one, successful SaaS support the end-to-end customer experience digitally. That means successful SaaS have defined complete customer journeys and mapped content to every phase or step of those journeys. That’s a lot of effort resulting in many lessons learned. Let’s turn to two that can benefit retailers.

Show -- don’t just tell -- your brand purpose. A meaningful purpose can differentiate a retail brand for any generation, but especially the up-and-coming Gen Z. One recent study by Roundel found 73% of Gen Z participants will buy only from brands they believe in.

Adding purpose to a brand starts with saying what the purpose is. For instance, the wildly successful Salesforce has always described its purpose as “building stronger relationships.” But that can’t be where purpose ends. A brand has to demonstrate the purpose or risk coming across as not genuine or even hypocritical.

Salesforce is a model for showing -- not just telling -- its purpose through content. The company launched a Netflix-like experience called Salesforce+, which provides on-demand content with very high production value about timely business and marketing topics, often involving Salesforce customers. When Salesforce launched the platform, CMO Sarah Franklin explained “the always-on, business media platform…builds trusted relationships with customers and a sense of belonging for the business community.”

I’m not saying every retailer has to replicate Netflix. But every retailer can offer content that demonstrates its purpose. For instance, Patagonia’s catalog is part outdoor magazine, with stories that illustrate bringing its environmentalism to life.

Help customers help themselves. As retail becomes an increasingly digital experience, so does retail customer service. And great SaaS have figured out not only how to handle customer service but also how to enable customer success.

Outstanding SaaS such as Mailchimp and Airbnb offer a thoughtful (and often rigorously tested) combination of content to help customers solve problems, become aware of useful features, and get more value out of the experience. Content examples include, but are far from limited to:

• Microcopy such as labels, instructions, headings, icons, and error messages.
• Wizards, or step-by-step interactive guides.
• FAQs that are easily accessible by chat and voice search.
• Contextual help such as tool tips and notifications.
• Best practices and success factors based on the most successful or relevant customers.
• Chat bots or copilots fueled by FAQs, contextual help, and other content.

Forward-thinking retailers are already taking a cue from SaaS to better help customers. For instance, Walmart recently launched a copilot that allows customers to make requests such as “Help me plan a Cinco de Mayo party” and receive relevant product suggestions from all departments. What would make this experience even better is guidance, tips, and inspiration content integrated into the results, or a “wizard” (see above) experience.

So, as retailers compete on digital experiences, they have an opportunity to gain advantage by acting like top SaaS brands. Imbue the experience with content that shows your purpose and empowers customers to succeed.

 There are several reasons local-direct revenue should be a mainstay in your portfolio. 
Here's a current national perspective from one of the big 5 networks explaining why. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Fox Sees Q1 Low Single-Digit Ad Decline: Analyst

• by Wayne Friedman , 2 hours ago

Fox Corp.'s first-quarter advertising declined $640 million in the company's most recent quarterly period to $1.24 billion -- almost entirely due to the absence of Super Bowl advertising revenue a year earlier.

Advertising revenue at its national broadcast TV and stations came in at $834 million, including its cable TV network operations -- mostly Fox News Media -- at $296 million.

For the latter, Fox says it saw lower digital advertising as well as modest pricing declines with direct-response advertisers. In addition, the year earlier, Fox's national sports networks carried the “World Baseball Classic.”

Tubi helped offset some of its TV ad revenue declines -- rising 22% year-over-year, representing about 2% of its total advertising business, estimates Brian Wieser, media analyst at Madison & Wall.

Wieser says the expected boom from political advertising in this big Presidential election season has so far been underwhelming.

“Political advertising is also evidently coming in at levels that are softer than what we saw in 2020,” he says. Still, at Fox, “soft as it might be at the present time, [political] probably accounted for a couple of percentage points of growth, indicating a low single digit underlying decline.”

But Fox's affiliate revenue remains steady -- even amid industry wide cord-cutting, which has affected national TV cable and other networks.

Fox's affiliate revenue was up 4% to $1.94 billion -- 9% higher for its broadcast TV operations to $834 million and a slight 1% more for its cable TV networks to $1.1 billion.

Total Fox Corp. revenues were down 16% in the period with adjusted cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- improving up 7% to $891 million

RADIOWORLD

The Resilience of Radio: Connecting Through Music and Real Personalities

"The medium continues to serve as a bridge that brings people together through shared experiences and shared love for music"

BY RIMA DAEL ⋅

PUBLISHED: MAY 1, 2024

Radio World’s “Guest Commentaries” section provides a platform for industry thought leaders and other readers to share their perspective on radio news, technological trends and more. If you’d like to contribute a commentary, or reply to an already published piece, send a submission to radioworld@futurenet.com.

---

The author is CEO of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, which has been serving the nation’s community radio stations since 1978. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at Radio World.

For some of us in public radio, the past few weeks have been tough. The recent resignation of a veteran National Public Radio (NPR) editor who penned an essay alleging liberal bias in the network’s coverage has reignited demands from some congressional members to strip the federal government’s funding from the nonprofit media organization.

If this ever were to pass, it would definitely hurt stations in the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) membership. More than 60% of our members participate in a music licensing agreement between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and SoundExchange, in which NPR has a critical role in administering.

Rima Dael

In addition, many NFCB stations rely on the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS), managed by NPR, to get many of their programs, not just from NPR but from American Public Media, Public Radio Exchange and others that distribute independent programs. And, of course, we all rely on the PRSS for national public safety since it is an integral part of our Emergency Alert System.

Additionally, the essay of the NPR editor conflated issues of a declining radio audience with a focus on DEI and community representation, which further allows anti-DEI sentiments to flourish in certain spaces.

This is what is most personally exhausting for me and many folks of color in radio, who have to defend our rights to be in certain rooms, and the value of centering our narratives which have been historically marginalized. For all of the above reasons, it has been challenging these past few weeks. 

So, who would have thought that the balm for my soul would come from the Jacobs Media TechSurvey?!! An actual survey with data that presented me with facts over my own perception! Yes, the survey results and data presented by my friend Fred Jacobs centered on commercial radio, but there are a ton of community and public radio take-aways as well! The following are my reflections and musings from this calming survey, and you can download the report at Jacobs Media’s website.

In a world inundated with digital streaming services and AI-driven algorithms, radio continues to hold its ground as a significant medium for connecting people to music and real personalities. The recently published Jacobs Media Techsurvey 2024 report sheds light on the enduring appeal of radio, emphasizing that at its core, people tune in for the connections they feel with radio DJs and personalities; and music trumps all other formats.

Ad Data Shows a Tale of Two Social Media Platforms

• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, Yesterday

Following President Joe Biden's signing of a bill that would ban TikTok unless it is sold to a U.S. owner, Guideline released estimates for the share of U.S. social media ad spending going to each of the major platforms in recent years.

Not surprisingly, ByteDance-owned TikTok's share has grown from just 2% during the 12-months running between April 2020 and March 2021 to 18% during the same period currently.

The data also reveals a continuously precipitous drop for X Platform -- formerly Twitter -- since it was acquired by Elon Musk.

According to Guideline's estimates, X's share of social media ad spending declined from 13% prior to Musk's ownership to 2% currently.

To be fair, Guideline's estimates are derived from a pool of actual media-buying data compiled from the major agency holding companies and big independent media agencies, so it does not reflect some of the long-tail ad spending from small and medium size businesses that may be sustaining some of the ad revenues from X and other platforms.

 

U.S. Consumer Time Spent with Media Fell for First Time In 2023

• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, Yesterday

The good news -- or bad news, depending on how you look at it -- is that consumer time spent with media continues to expand. The really bad news for the ad industry is that ad-supported media's share continues to decline, in both the U.S. and worldwide.

Those are among the findings in the 2024 edition of an annual Global Consumer Media Usage Forecast released this morning by PQ Media.

While total weekly time spent with media actually declined 0.4% to 76.69 hours in the U.S., and inched up only 0.3% to 56.15 hours worldwide, PQ forecasts it will rebound again this year and continue expanding for the foreseeable future.

“[Media consumption] will post accelerated growth in 2024 with general elections in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, India and South Africa, as well as the Summer Olympics in Paris, that will drive media usage rates in most of Western Europe that are in the same time zone or within an hour,” says PQ Media CEO Patrick Quinn. “In 2026, we’ll see this same phenomenon in the Americas when the United States, Mexico and Canada tri-host the FIFA World Cup and, again, in 2028 when the Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles.”

In terms of ad-supported media's share of time spent, the U.S. reached the tipping point in 2015, when consumer-supported media became the dominant sources for American consumers.

For the global consumer media marketplace, ad-supported media will continue to have the dominant share through 2028, but it also is on a trajectory to tip sometime shortly after that.

COMMENTARY

Predicting The Future Will Matter More in CTV Ads Than Optimizing in Real Time

• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, 2 hours ago

There’s no question the future of TV advertising will be data-driven and automated, as well as increasingly streamed and optimized at the impression level.

Many digital folks assume this “programmatic” future for TV and CTV advertising will be real-time-bidded, much like what happened over the past decade in banners, social and web video. I don’t share that assumption.

Instead, I believe that while CTV advertising -- and much of linear as well -- will be digitally (programmatically) planned, bought, sold, measured and optimized, the real-time-bidded and optimized component will shrink, not grow.

Why? Because buying ads on CTV is about buying the full-screen attention of audiences. It’s not about chasing clicks on banners, though advertisers are increasingly valuing closed-loop measurements and attributions.

Since people and their attention are fundamentally scarce, we’re already seeing the bulk of CTV ad spend shift into private marketplaces and “programmatic guaranteed” buys, increasingly done by insertion orders rather than open bids.

If more and more CTV ad money moves in “forward market” transactions (the term that The Trade Desk is giving it), here are some of the implications this will have for players in the CTV ad market:

• Fewer CTV ad transactions for real-time bidding
• Fewer intermediaries in CTV transaction
• Lower platform fees captured by DSPs & SSPs
• Higher data fees, with DSPs and SSPs fighting to capture them
• Less “scrapable” user/publisher data on open exchanges
• Growth in importance of verified identity data
• Growth in “walled garden” share of CTV ad transactions

There’s a lot to unpack in this list above, which I will endeavor to do in future columns. In the meantime, the biggest takeaway is that much of the value in the CTV ad market -- certainly for ad optimization -- will shift from real-time decisioning to forward market planning and commitments.

Predicting the future will matter more in CTV ads than optimizing the present. Are you ready for that?

 

Creative Problem-Solving Starts with Better Defining the Problem

By

 Min Basadur, Michael Goldsby, Rob Mathews

 -

April 29, 2024.









Albert Einstein once said, “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.” Einstein implication is that scientific advances come not so much from thinking up new solutions as from formulating problems in new ways or seeing them from different angles.

When it comes to finding innovative solutions, correctly defining the customer’s problem is the necessary first step. Comprehensive problem definition involves investigating and considering a vast number of possible new directions to explore. Approaching the perceived problem by reframing it into challenge statements will provide new possibilities. To do so, it’s helpful to employ the phrase, “How might I?” to generate a list of suggestions.

For example, imagine you’re helping your teenage son think his way through a problem without jumping into possible solutions for him. If your son perceives his challenge as “How might I get tickets to the concert?” you ask him, “Why do you want to get tickets to the concert?” (What’s the intent?) He then answers, “I want a date with Sue.” You then help him turn that answer into a broader challenge – “How might I get a date with Sue?” – to which there are now many more possible solutions to his problem.

Another example of how accurate problem definition enables better solutions comes from Min who, early in his career at Proctor & Gamble, was asked for help by a product development team that was formed in response to a competitor’s new product. Colgate’s green-striped Irish Spring was the first striped soap bar introduced to North America. With its aggressive advertising campaign emphasizing “refreshment,” the soap brand was finding ready consumer acceptance.

One of the rules at Procter & Gamble was that if it were the second entrant into a new market, a new product’s competitive advantage had to be demonstrated prior to market testing. When Min asked the team what was going wrong, they said they’d been unable to produce a green-striped bar that was preferred over Irish Spring in a consumer preference blind test. The team had experimented with several green-striped bars, all of which merely equaled Irish Spring in blind testing. It became evident to Min that the team had chosen to define its problem as, “How might we make a green-striped bar that consumers will prefer over Irish Spring?”

In applying the creative problem-solving process to the problem, Min began by developing alternative ways to frame the challenge. By repeatedly asking “Why might we want to make a green-striped bar that consumers would prefer over Irish Spring?” the group generated many alternative “How might we?” challenges.

The flash of inspiration came when a team member answered: “We want to make people feel more refreshed.” This led to the new challenge: “How might we better connote refreshment in a soap bar?” This less restrictive challenge, which included no mention of green stripes, gave them more room for creative solutions.

About 200 solution ideas were quickly generated for refreshment ideas. On evaluation, two ideas stood out. One was an image of sitting on a white sandy beach with blue sky, white clouds, and enjoying soothing, cooling breezes. The other was based on travel to the sea coast for refreshment. The eventual product result was a blue and white swirly bar with a unique scent and shape, which quickly won a blind test over Irish Spring, then soon achieved market success under the brand name Coast.

Solving this problem once it had been properly defined took the team mere hours. By leaping prematurely into solutions, the team had wasted almost six months before coming up with that problem definition.

Too often in the innovation process, people jump directly from problems to possible solutions. Successful problem-solving, however, requires them to begin the process with the recognition that they have a fuzzy situation and need to gather facts in order to better define the problem. Only after the “How might we?” line of inquiry is undertaken in a thorough fashion to allow for better insight should they move on to exploring, evaluating, and selecting solution ideas.