Download Balancing Paid, Owned and Earned Media a Must for Multichannel

Balancing Paid, Owned and Earned
Media a Must for Multichannel
Marketers
AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Norm Johnston
Global Digital Leader, Mindshare Worldwide
December 13, 2011
Mindshare Worldwide, an advertising and marketing services agency that is
part of Group M and the larger WPP company, was one of the first global, fullservice media companies. Norm Johnston, Mindshare’s global digital leader, is
responsible for overseeing and expanding the agency’s digital capabilities and
strategy. He also works the front lines, advising clients on digital campaigns
and media plans.
Johnston spoke with eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher about the importance of
looking beyond media devices and advertising channels when crafting a
multichannel campaign. He suggests marketers look closely at their mix of paid,
owned and earned media allocation across channels.
eMarketer: How does Mindshare Worldwide approach building a multichannel
advertising campaign strategy?
Norm Johnston: We do a lot of our analysis based on the consumer journey
of trying to sense where the consumer is going based on the brand objective,
or based on the data.
It’s not so much just about the channels or devices where we can reach
consumers, it’s more about the understanding of the dynamics between paid
and earned media. How consumers are using devices is quite interesting, and
that has had an impact on how we approach and build campaigns, but I think if
you build your approach around devices, you’re gradually going to drive
yourself crazy. The goal should be making sure that on any device, people can
find what they want to find.
For example, rather than separating mobile out, we embed a mobility mentality
into everything we’re doing. So when we look at paid, owned and earned
media, there’s a mobile aspect to each of those things. Sometimes, it’s simply
an extension of what we’re already doing—paid search is one example where
that’s true. We need to get past this concept that mobile’s something separate,
because it’s not. If people can’t see your brand on a mobile phone or a tablet,
you’ve got an issue.
"We need to get past this concept that mobile’s
something separate, because it’s not. If people
can’t see your brand on a mobile phone or a
tablet, you’ve got an issue."
From there, you can start to think more about contextual environments—the
differences between a tablet experience and a computer experience—and
choose the types of ads that are going to make your campaign work a little bit
harder.
eMarketer: What benefit does looking at multichannel marketing through the
lens of a paid, owned and earned media strategy offer?
Johnston: There are all these correlations between paid, owned and earned
that are quite fascinating. When we’re helping clients build campaigns that mix
these media, it’s important to make sure campaigns are fluid and not set in
stone.
For example, if you see paid media activity generating significant amounts of
earned media, then you should be able to recalibrate your focus and energy to
be able to achieve greater incremental reach that leverages this observed
relationship. We refer to this as “adaptive planning,” and it’s almost like a
trading scenario, where you look at the data in real time and adjust things on a
continued basis.
eMarketer: With all the different types of metrics online and offline, how are
you able to aggregate data and compare apples to apples?
Johnston: There’s a big debate right now in the advertising community about
how to best do this. We work with Nielsen in the US and Google in others parts
of the world to try and come up with common planning metrics, particularly
between TV and online.
The industry is struggling to redefine metrics for a digital world. For example,
many want digital to adopt television’s [gross rating point] metric, but on some
level that’s dumbing down the internet for people who are used to TV’s
outdated measurement model, ignoring the fact that the internet is a lot more
sophisticated when it comes to actual metrics. Sometimes, though, this is
necessary to create a more cohesive bridge between the two.
But sometimes on the internet side, particularly when you’re looking at metrics
across paid, owned and earned media, there is almost too much data. So it’s a
challenge for everyone at this point.
I think what we’ll see in the next couple of years is more devices becoming IPenabled, especially in light of significant mobile growth. And if TV becomes
connected and IP-enabled devices become more mainstream, internet-based
KPIs will become much more the norm than the exception.
eMarketer: Do approaches to cross-channel advertising differ based on
branding versus direct-response objectives?
Johnston: On the direct side, marketers have always been very good with
digital, but there’s an arguable blurring that is happening between branding
and direct response as more assets become interactive and responseoriented, which is inherently digital.
It’s no longer just about the qualitative boost to brand sentiment when
interacting with a particular asset. Marketers now have to decide whether they
want their creative to be shared, or liked, or clicked on to direct consumers to a
catalog or retail space. The branding and direct-response worlds are beginning
to blur more than they have in the past.
"The branding and direct-response worlds are
beginning to blur more than they have in the
past."
eMarketer: Can you share an example of how companies are incorporating
direct-response elements into their brand-based campaigns?
Johnston: Brand companies are becoming much more interested in
ecommerce and other direct-response objectives in addition to their brandbased KPIs.
Some are using their branding to also drive actual sales. It could be as simple
as putting QR codes on traditional brand-focused advertising, such as print
and outdoor, to deliver people coupons or promotions. For example, in South
Korea, grocery food chain Tesco is using QR codes to get people to buy
products. They’re really interested in using digital to get somebody quickly from
branding and awareness into an actual purchase.
We’re doing a lot of work in this area, helping companies to use their
advertising and media to better effect their ecommerce strategy. It’s really
about identifying the right media mix allocation and using each media to its
fullest potential.
eMarketer: How else have you seen brand marketers evolve their use of
multichannel and cross-channel advertising?
Johnston: Traditionally, brand marketers tended to be more focused on the
top of funnel, where TV is a main focus. But more and more we’re seeing
companies put a substantial part of their TV budget into online, which also
delivers a brand impact, particularly online video. Clients are migrating parts of
their TV budgets to YouTube or Hulu or other online video ad opportunities,
and that seems to be working for them.
We’ve done quite a bit of work with Google to research those tools to
understand the optimal mix between TV and online video. What we’ve found is
that TV and online video complement each other. And there’s incremental
reach with some audiences online that don’t watch a lot of TV.
If you spend the appropriate amount of money on both, you get a greater
impact on your brand KPIs than you would by skewing heavily toward one or
the other. But figuring out the right amount of money is probably the biggest
challenge from the brand side.
eMarketer: When thinking about incorporating elements of paid, owned and
earned media into your overall multichannel advertising and marketing
strategy, is there any one of the three that is most critical?
Johnston: You cannot underestimate the impact of word-of-mouth on the
earned side. If you look at Apple, for example, they don’t spend a lot of money
on media, and they spend very little on creative. But because they have a
strong attitude and such strong word-of-mouth, it does wonders for the brand.
There’s a premium and a value to earned media, and it is especially important
in product and vertical categories where you have a lot of commoditization—it’s
the only thing that’s going to give a brand the ability to get a higher profit
margin.
But I will say, from the data we’ve seen from Facebook and others, it’s hard to
generate earned media without some level of paid media. And, you have to
have something owned, even in the simplest terms, a Facebook fan page or a
brand page—some place people can discover the brand.
Still, you can spend a lot of money in paid media and develop a wonderful
website, but if there is poor sentiment, you’re in trouble. No amount of paid
media is going to make up for a large amount of bad, earned media.
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