Four A's Conference: Madison Avenue Wants New Benchmarks

TV business no longer about age, sex, demo

By Claire Atkinson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/1/2010 3:31:02 PM

Madison Avenue is in the process of redesigning itself and with it the entire ecosystem supporting the nation's media outlets. How that transformation is occurring is the theme of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, or The Four A's, annual get together being held in San Francisco today, March 1.

The power think-tank has attracted a range of players from across the media spectrum. Chiefs of three of the biggest publishing groups delivered a joint presentation on magazines: Ann Moore of Time Inc.; Jack Griffin at Meredith and Cathleen Black of Hearst. The online world fielded Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz while Comcast COO Steve Burke is due to address the influential crowd Tuesday, March 2.

But before the media executives got to make their respective pitches, GroupM North America CEO Marc Goldstein set the scene explaining the kind of headaches affecting those on the other side of the desk. Goldstein described a kind of schizophrenia which has taken over at the client level. He said the disconnect is between brand managers who want the latest premium opportunities such as branded entertainment and the procurement officials at their companies want to discuss cut backs. Goldstein called it the biggest threat to media agencies.

Explaining how the media business is undergoing radical shifts he said, "We can not be governed by age, sex, demographic and age, sex, efficiency. We need to make decisions differently, benchmarks must change."

The good news is that marketers are on their way to reducing their waste, says Goldstein. He said a primetime show might have a CPM of $27 on adults aged 25-54 which might rise to $165 with more specific targets added.  "Now comes addressability. The promise that through targeting the same primetime spot will be able to reach only those specific homes and the seller says that's $100. That's 40% lower.  As a marketer, if my target CPM is $100, is that high? I might not think so if there's no waste."  Goldstein's conclusion: "As a function of new technology and new benchmarks, we're reaching the point were none of the money will be wasted."

The magazine executive's pitch centered on a new ad campaign to underline areas of growth in magazine readership and combat an explosion of myths that digital executives purvey about the print business. However, it appeared tailored for an earlier era, comparing magazine statistics against TV statistics. Moore presented a slide which stated that People magazine has 43 million readers compared to the 27 million people who watched the American Idol finale on Fox. Advertisers these days are more interested in the who, than how many.

Another morning presentation from Jane Clarke, the head of the cross industry group, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), underscored Goldstein's point about new benchmarks. As the industry moves beyond linear TV measurement towards a new TV Everywhere world, CIMM is attempting to get those in the business of providing set-top-box data to standardize such concepts as dwell time or how long people watch and on demand video, for instance. The organization is finalizing an entirely new and evolving lexicon for an industry in flux.

Arianna Huffington did not deliver a pitch for her particular venture but instead offered a smart and humorous take on how the media business is changing. According to her statistics, the amount of content uploaded to YouTube in the past two months is equal to the amount of content created by the big TV networks since 1948. Self expression is the new entertainment.  "People spent seven hours a day watching bad TV.  Now, people want to be part of the story of their times. They want to participate in small and big ways, on small and big issues. This is a huge opportunity for advertisers and marketers. The most engaged consumers are the most loyal ones," Huffington said.

Chatting with Huffington in a hotel corridor after the magazine executives presentation, she observed, "It's not a competition, there's room for everybody." Sadly, it is, and there isn't.