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Putting Together the Fragments: Recalibrating How Media is Planned & Bought

With the world of advertising fragmented, Nick Reid (pictured below), UK managing director, TubeMogul, explains to ExchangeWire why fragmentation is a good thing – as long as marketers know how to make the most of it.

Being a marketer in today’s fragmented world sometimes feels like playing a video game. After every level you manage to pass, some new, dark challenge appears, costing a life and bringing you one step closer to ‘Game Over’.

In the marketing world, fragmentation is the real-life equivalent of the killer ghost or video demon. As consumers increasingly turn to more and more devices to enjoy content, marketers are faced with a dilemma: how do I piece together an effective ad campaign in the face of increased and varied device and platform usage?

Many are choosing the ostrich approach, putting their heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away. But the reality is that fragmentation can actually be a force for good. In this world, where data and insights can make or break a marketer, fragmentation gives marketers an opportunity to better tailor campaigns to attract and pinpoint target audiences.

Let’s look at the advertising of the past. Twenty years ago, marketers would have stitched together TV, OOH, and print – and that’s about it. Data would have been limited to clunky survey results garnered using post-campaign questionnaires, ad buys were expensive, and you wouldn’t even see what the results were up to a month post-campaign. Sure, publishers may have been able to boast more volume in terms of eyeballs, but how many of those consumers actually engaged with the ad (or would have even been interested in it in the first place).

Nick Reid | TubeMogul

Nick Reid, UK MD, TubeMogul

Today, data delivered by multiple ad formats means we can be even more targeted and make ad pounds work harder than ever before. Mobile, desktop, social, and tablet usage can be monitored giving us information on demographics, age, gender, brand affinities, completion rates, and more. It’s no longer about spray and pray, it’s about using all the available data sources to plan, buy and optimise a comprehensive ad campaign that can be dialled up or down on various placements in real-time.

Contrary to the belief that fragmentation makes marketers' lives more difficult, I argue that it actually makes it easier – but you’ll need a single platform that monitors your entire media buy to make it work. Where fragmentation causes issues is when advertisers continue to try and plot campaigns using old-fashioned methods, or stick specific ad-buying teams in silos. A cross-screen approach is necessary, otherwise overspend and consumer fatigue is sure to set in due to overexposure (lack of frequency capping).

As programmatic TV becomes more prevalent, the removal of silos will be even more critical. As programmatic is simply the purchase of media using software, it is affecting placements on every screen and device, meaning the silos will become irrelevant and downright challenging. Inevitably, this will require a recalibration or evaluation in how media is planned and bought. Tomorrow’s marketers are going to need skills that enable them to look at campaigns holistically – and not limit themselves to knowing in-depth detail about a single advertising format. It’s all about the ideal mix that meets the needs of your target consumer and not about trying to shoehorn your consumer into the way you have set up your ad-buying team.

So, instead of railing against those annoying consumers and their fragmented content habits, why not celebrate their diverse viewing and engagement patterns by being like Pacman and eating up every bit of data you can in order to win. Pretty soon, you’ll munch up something big, allowing you to beat the ghosts and reach to newer and greater heights.