Technology has changed beyond recognition the way we live, the way we interact with each other and the way we do business. And the change is constant. So when I was given the opportunity to attend GroupM’s Tech Planet program in San Francisco, I knew it would be a phenomenal experience to witness the latest technologies and innovations within the media industry.
For a whole week, along with seven other GroupM employees, I got to attend sessions at four of the world’s leading tech giants at their San Fran headquarters. I extracted five key points from my learnings.
1. Consumer research is the holy grail of marketing
Our trip started with a bang at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters where we learnt about Facebook for Business and the importance of extensive research studies. The fundamental learning I took away from the session was how much more valuable consumer research is compared to the average metrics like click-through rate. As much as click-through rate can show immediate and direct engagement, it doesn’t clarify the user’s intent to buy the product. Metrics like ‘intent to buy’ and ‘Brand recall’ are imperative to the measurement of success in a campaign.
2. Culture makes the business
Still at Facebook, we got to experience first hand the company’s much-discussed culture, including the countless free restaurants, dentist, arcade, hairdresser, sweet shop and spa on the Facebook campus. More interesting, however, was being given a rare insight into the world’s most infatuating tech company when we heard Facebook employees talking about Mark Zuckerberg in incredibly high esteem. They affectionately referred to him as “Zuck”, and disclosed his fearless and inspirational ability to take risks. A value reverberating throughout the company is Move Fast, powered by Mark’s belief that: “If you’re 80% certain it’s the right idea, do it.”
3. Programmatic is getting deeper
At AOL, we received a deep and fascinating session on programmatic buying, where the overall goal was to know as much about the consumer as possible and find the product to match. We learnt how ONE by AOL, which is a rebranding of its programmatic portfolio of offerings, harvests personal level data, and creates lookalike profiles to blast the relevant content to the relevant consumer. The platform starts with Media Buying which encompasses a full suite of Display, Video and TV. The next level addresses Inventory Access. The solutions here are ‘Marketplace by AdTech’ (Display exchange) and ‘Video Marketplace’ (Video exchange). The offering concludes with Audience Measurement and Analytics & Attribution: a sophisticated analysis of the campaign results.
4. Streaming is the future of radio
Day three saw us visit Pandora Radio in Oakland. In the US, Pandora has over 250 million registered users, while in Australia and NZ there are two million. Over there, the top 10 selling cars accommodate Pandora as part of their radio sources, and the radio streaming platform is present in over 1,000 consumer electronics – including a fridge. The scale of compatibility in so many devices shows just how much has been invested in Pandora’s future. As the app with the highest user dwell time in the US, Pandora has developed some incredible marketing capabilities, ranging from audio to video and interactive display. Interestingly, its goal is not to increase volume of paying subscribers, but to provide an accurate and personalised music offering to each individual user – putting quality ahead of quantity (or number of users).
5. Partnerships create strength
On our final day at Yahoo, we learnt of the company’s three recent acquisitions and what they mean for the media industry. Bright Roll collaborates with three key data partners (Moat, ComScore and Nielsen) to build programmatic software that automates and improves digital video advertising globally. Once amalgamated, the offering achieves economic efficiency, premium quality targeting, organisational efficiency and sophisticated levels of campaign measurement.
Flurry, the second acquisition, is the third highest reaching mobile platform and described as the ‘Google Analytics of Mobile’. Research has shown 88% of time spent on mobile online is within an app. Flurry currently has access to over 700,000 apps out of a total pool of two million, and that share is rapidly growing. The partnership means that Yahoo can help Flurry expand its app access, effectively solving the issue of mobile trackability.
The acquisition of Tumblr gives Yahoo access to the fastest-growing social platform currently in Australia. Tumblr blends well with Yahoo’s recent push in native advertising. In the US, there are currently 200 million Tumblr blogs, and 85 million post per day.
Seeing these innovations first hand was a great reminder of the tools at our disposal and their benefit to our clients. In a constantly changing media landscape, staying ahead of the latest developments is a business imperative.
By Amy Fyfe, planning executve at Maxus Australia