The IAB’s MeasureUP is the only measurement focused conference in Australia and has a track-record of providing insight into both marketing outcomes and the science of measurement. This year the 4th annual MeasureUp conference was held virtually with 25 local and international speakers providing inspiration and confidence to marketers, agencies and the industry by demonstrating the many ways digital advertising can deliver on business objectives and ways to continue to measure success and optimise marketing investment into the future.
The 3-day event provided marketers with insights into strategies and approaches for-
- sustainable measurement frameworks that provide robust cross-media evaluation
- building and gaining value from privacy compliant, first-party data
- investing in resilient brands for long term success
In a series of live poll questions sponsored by Ipsos and presented during the MeasureUP webinars, conference attendees provided their thoughts on topics of the day. Here is a summary of the key thoughts coming from the Ipsos live audience poll and some highlights from the presentation content.
An optimistic outlook for advertising
Despite the great challenges of 2020, MeasureUP attendees were looking optimistically towards 2021. 55% of MeasureUP attendees who participated in the live Ipsos poll indicated their confidence that the advertising market would grow year on year with a further 39% indicating ad expenditure would stay similar to 2020 levels. Early data for the Online Advertising Expenditure Report July to September 2020, compiled by PWC on behalf of the IAB, indicates a strong return in digital advertising investment for the quarter.
Solving for key challenges – cross-media measurement, ad attention and identity solutions
Industry-standard cross-media campaign measurement continues to be the number one challenge for the industry. Amongst 6 key marketing measurement challenges, 33% of MeasureUP attendees who participated in the live Ipsos poll voted that industry-standard cross-media campaign measurement is the most important for the industry currently, followed by capturing and measuring attention to advertising (20%) and finding identity solutions with retirement of the third-party cookie (16%).
IAB CEO Gai Le Roy interviewed ISBA Project Director Richard Halton for MeasureUp, where Richard spoke of the UK project to put into effect the WFA’s global framework for cross-media measurement, developed from major collaboration involving marketers, agencies, platforms and broadcasters. At heart of this framework is marketers needs and requirements for cross-media measurement. The ISBA project is starting with a blueprint for campaign reach and frequency measurement for TV and digital display but has its eye on an approach that will scale to content/context, across other media and to other global markets. The approach is being designed to provide marketers with consistent measurement across media but also respect the differential effects of each media. The solution will be privacy compliant and more likely fuse existing data sources in each market, rather than building from the ground up. To find out more watch the interview here.
Attention in advertising is a topic gaining more and more focus. The proliferation of platforms, devices and environments has led to a need to supplement exposure for planning and measuring a campaign with a better understanding of attention and how and why audiences pay attention to some ads and not others. Rohan Gifford, Research Manager at Google Australia presented research that identified three drivers of attention – choice, creative and context. You can watch Rohan’s presentation here. Also on the topic of ad attention Playground xyz presented their whitepaper, Attention Time: Redefining how marketers measure and optimise ads in real time, which was awarded Best Advertising Effectiveness Study in the inaugural MeasureUP Research Awards.
Indications from MeasureUP attendees who participated in the Ipsos live poll point to the need for further understanding of the changes occurring with cookies and the impact on ad effectiveness measurement. 75% of the Ipsos live poll respondents indicated they are somewhat informed but would like to know more and a further 16% had no understanding at all. MeasureUP featured a very informative panel discussion with industry experts on creating a sustainable and holistic marketing measurement strategy considering impending browser changes. Panellist Paul Sinkinson, Managing Director of Analytic Partners, said many marketers are asking if they can still measure the impact on sales and his response is yes absolutely with a move from a deterministic to probabilistic model. So rather than attempting to account for individual touchpoints across a long customer journey (and often assigning all value to the last consumer activity), marketers need to move to looking at consumers probability of an activity impacting and changing behaviour. Watch the panel here
Time to take control of privacy compliant first party data
Retail has fundamentally changed this year. While many consumer retail journeys start with online, COVID-19 has driven a rapid increase in buying online. The path to purchase has become more dynamic, blurring the lines between digital and physical and so an integrated omnichannel strategy is essential. Hamish Mogan, Measurement Lead at Facebook, presented on measuring marketing impact on sales using experimental techniques that establish the incremental effect of digital advertising on both instore and online sales. Hamish also interviewed Iman Behzadian, Head of Data Science from Woolies X, on the importance of data and signals for marketing and how WooliesX are leveraging data for targeting personalised customer messages and effectiveness measurement. Watch Hamish and Iman’s interview here.
The retirement of the third-party cookie presents a significant opportunity for competitive advantage from mastering first-party data. Forward-thinking marketers realise that it is time to take control of their first-party data, making it as comprehensive and usable as possible. MeasureUP featured an expert panel discussion focused on building and gaining value from privacy compliant first-party data sets. Matt Bruty, Solution Architect at Digital Balance, set the scene with a presentation on the impact of restrictions on 3rd party cookies and the evolving use of first-party data. Watch the presentation and panel discussion here.
Panelist Sara Long, eCommerce Lead for The Kraft Heinz Company, spoke of her experiences in creating a direct-to-consumer platform called Heinz to Home, launched in June this year where consumers can buy Heinz FMCG products online. The business objective of Heinz to Home is to drive brand equity while connecting and interacting directly with consumers to capture first-party data useful for marketing activities. Sara spoke about the importance of building trusted customer relationships and the value exchange between brand and customer when collecting their data which Heinz are achieving through offering unique consumers product bundles, exclusive limited edition product, subscription discounts, free delivery periods and the opportunity to have their say on products offered by Heinz.
Understanding the implications of privacy law is fundamental to first-party data strategies. Amongst MeasureUP attendees who participated in the Ipsos live poll (and possibly the industry at large), there is a gap in understand of the principles of Australian privacy law regarding collecting and using first party data. 77% of respondents felt somewhat informed but would like to know more and a further 16% feel they have no understanding at all. IAB members can improve knowledge and keep up-to-date with our regular Policy and Privacy Briefings.
Building a resilient brand is more important than ever
A considerable body of marketing research consistently confirms that strong brands help their businesses to survive turbulent times. Strong brands recover from crisis more quickly and help build business growth today and into the future. The IAB’s Digital Brand Effect Report, presented at MeasureUP 2019, found that digital channels deliver brand impact along the marketing funnel in a highly cost-efficient way and that the long term retained brand impacts delivered by digital campaigns are also on par with those of other media. While the industry is well versed in conducting brand-lift experiments to measure short-term campaign impact, the measurement of longer-term brand impact is more challenging. Amongst MeasureUP attendees who participated in the Ipsos live poll, only 7% indicated they felt the industry was very proficient in assessing the longer-term brand impact of digital advertising, with 73% saying the industry is somewhat proficient.
At MeasureUP this year we focused on how brands can drive long term brand equity. Kirsten Riolo, Director at Ipsos and Kathy Benson, Chief Client Officer at Ipsos presented on managing brands through turbulent times. Ipsos’s global tracking data collected in the weeks prior to MeasureUP indicated that Australians are feeling much more confident about the COVID-19 situation now than people from many other countries and are making significant life changes rather than returning to how it was before the crisis. Ipsos say for marketers this means they need to understand consumer needs and motivations, accelerate business innovation and crisis proof their brands by ensuring brands makes a difference, are forward-looking and contributing to community and society. Watch the presentation here
So, in 2020, the year of enormous social upheaval, is the timing ideal for marketers to seize this opportunity to strengthening brands’ role in society? MeasureUP attendees who participated in the Ipsos live poll agreed with nearly all (98%) saying that organisations should have a role to play in societal marketing, in particular they thought large corporate organisations and government should play a role. The MeasureUP panel ‘Should brands and marketers play an active role in societal change?’ weighed up the inherent risks in brands involvement in movement marketing with the potential for long term brand equity benefit of having a more prolific role in world events. Watch the panel discussion here.
Panelist Sophie Finn, General Manager of Brand and Advertising at Allianz believes strongly that brands can drive societal change and have a responsibility to do so, however spoke to the potential risk for brands in the area when there is a disconnect between what the brand stands for, corporate strategy and what might become a marketing ploy. Sophie’s advice to marketers new to this area is to firstly understand what the brand stands for and the social issues that genuinely affect their customers so that the proposition is relevant to them. When looking for social causes and propositions to support, marketers should be looking for adjacencies that make sense in the eyes of the consumer so researching the proposition with customers is important to ensure that its aligned with what they expect from the brand. It’s also important to be able to show the upside to the business, that the proposition will generate ROI and that risk is mitigated. In this processing getting corporate strategy teams on board so that marketing and corporate strategy is aligned will ensure the magic happens.
These are just a few highlights of the 4th annual MeasureUp conference. Full recordings of all MeasureUP panel sessions can be found on the IAB website –
Day 1 – The Science of Media Measurement and Marketing Outcomes
Day 2 – Data Revolution
Day 3 – Building Resilient Brands