All Media Buying & Planning Blogs

Big Television Networks Shutout by Golden Globes

As we enter into 2020, I’ve seen a whirlwind of 10-year flashbacks popping up all over social media. Was it just a minute ago or a small lifetime? After the recent release of the 2020 Golden Globe nominees, I decided to peek back at this award show 10 years ago. Do you want to take a guess at what show won best musical or comedy? The nominees were Glee, 30 Rock, Entourage, Modern Family and The Office. And the winner was…

Posted Jan 4, 2020

Life in the Faster Lane: 5G-Fueled Marketing & Autonomous Vehicles

It’s hard to believe that less than ten years ago, “4G” and “LTE” were buzzwords at consumer electronic tradeshows. In that short span of time, advertisers were given an arsenal of new mediums capable of reaching an increasingly powerful cohort of eager consumers. The yields of a 4G-connected world included easier mobile video streaming, the exponential growth of app stores, programmatic advertising platforms, and the genesis of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality. Now, these new capabilities have hit a ceiling — they can only perform as quickly as our rapidly aging communication infrastructure will allow.

 

In a 5G world, the consumer experience becomes seamless, frictionless and, most importantly, effortless.

The processing and exchange of data will be reduced from 100s of milliseconds to just a few, and with that, the introduction of ultimate, ubiquitous connectivity. By 2020, the number of connected devices is estimated to reach 50 billion, which means an even greater amount of data being exchanged each day. In that same time span, Cisco predicts global data usage to reach 30.6 exabytes per month — that’s 30.6 billion gigabytes for those keeping count.

One area of promising advancement, for customers and advertisers alike, comes with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. You have probably heard of a “journey map” or “customer experience map.” To sum it up quickly, a journey map is a holistic visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. We can use this process to understand our customer and be aware of communication touchpoints with our brand. If you’re a business that has brick-and-mortar locations, then there is probably an area in your journey map where a customer transports themselves to a store location. Until now, companies have only been able to reach that stage of the journey via radio and out-of-home advertising. But even then, messaging was mostly restricted to the awareness subsection of the marketing funnel. Autonomous vehicles enhance that touchpoint by utilizing the advancements of 5G connectivity. Brands will be capable of reaching customers at different stages of the marketing funnel by providing them with highly interactive and actionable content right from their dashboard.

Posted Nov 15, 2018

SEO vs. PPC: How to Know Which Will Drive Quality Traffic to Your Website

Congratulations! You’ve been tasked with increasing online traffic to your website. There is just one little wrinkle — your boss wants focus on search engines to achieve this goal. You will need some help from your PPC and SEO professionals. But what exactly is the difference between these two strategies? How can these strategies help point those online eyeballs to your business and its awesome online products and services?

Posted May 9, 2018

Olympics Ratings Slip, Audiences Watch in New Ways

The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics ratings may be down from the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, but NBC won primetime viewing. Audiences watched, advertisers bought time and NBC offered more ways to watch and experience the games with social media and VR technology. 

Posted Mar 20, 2018

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Marketing

The phrase “artificial intelligence” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it rouses fear of sentient machines vying to control the world. For others, it is an example of incredible scientific achievement. Whether you fear A.I. or revere it, you can be certain of one thing: artificial intelligence isn’t the future. It’s the now.

Posted Feb 13, 2018

Content Marketing and Supporting the Sales Funnel

If you’re reading this blog on a web browser in the US, there is a 30%* chance that you’re using an adblocker right now (roughly twice as likely as in 2014*). It’s pretty clear that internet users aren’t fond of spammy advertising on the internet.

Posted Jan 11, 2018

Thanks to Technology and Data, Out-of-Home Advertising Continues to Thrive

While TV and print budgets continue to decrease year after year, out-of-home budgets continue to grow with an estimated $29 billion for global out-of-home ad revenue in 2017. It’s projected to reach $33 billion by 2021, reported by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and MAGNA Intelligence Study. So how is it that the oldest form of advertising is still growing year after year? The answer is technology and data.

Posted Jan 11, 2018

5 Benefits of Buying Programmatic TV Advertising

The term "programmatic buying" can be somewhat uncomfortable to the traditional media buyer. Everything they’ve been practicing and preaching their entire careers is coming into question when discussing buying TV audiences via CPM (cost-per-thousand) vs. programming and GRPs (gross rating points).

Posted Apr 21, 2017

The Television vs. Livestream Battle Will Continue in 2017

eMarketer has recently released its 10 Key Digital Trends for 2017. One of these predictions is that some time in 2017 a live digital video stream will achieve a primetime TV-size audience. To preface this, when we discuss livestreaming we are not talking about current viewing on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. These are programs (usually also on TV) being broadcast through an online source. When looking at why they think this year will have this increase let’s take a look at what we saw in 2016 and what is planned for 2017.

Posted Dec 22, 2016

Olympics TV Ratings Stumble Due to 2016 Consumer Behavior

I am a fan of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, so I am well versed in the art of avoiding spoilers. As technology grows and changes we must adapt – modern day media Darwinism. Unfortunately, for many Olympic viewers, they were not prepared for the growing trend in media coverage – NOTIFICATIONS (Spoil-ylmpics?)! Evil, evil notifications sent to your phone or pushed out on social media by local and national media to take away the joy and surprise of who would be taking home that Olympic gold.

Posted Aug 26, 2016

The Nielsen Ratings Are about to Get Much More Accurate

Nielsen has started providing monthly ratings data in the top 45 markets across the country. They began testing the new method in 2015 and began rolling out monthly books in January 2016. Data will be collected from a total of 70 markets (25 Local People Markets, 31 set meter markets and 14 code reader markets). The goal according to Nielsen is to see a higher number of homes using TV, fewer zero quarter hours day-to-day and week-to-week, an increase in morning and daytime broadcast viewership and an increase in cable network numbers. What does this mean for buyers?

Posted Apr 18, 2016

Is Media Buying in the Super Bowl Necessary?

Super Bowl Sunday, the renowned unofficial American holiday, is almost here! And this year it’s a big one – Super Bowl 50.

Posted Feb 3, 2016