ANA Marketing Maestros

Why Media Efficiencies are Needed

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

The ANA is a proponent of the need to impose efficiency to the entire marketing supply chain. As such, we sit on the eBay Media Marketplace (still in beta) steering committee. As I am sure you all have heard, the eBay Media Marketplace is a media exchange designed by advertisers and their agencies in conjunction with eBay.

That is a fundamental difference from all of the other media marketplaces – this one was driven by the demand side! The eBay Media Marketplace as currently designed, is comprised of a “reverse auction” which automates a fragmented and in some cases maybe even a biased RFP (Request for Proposal) process. The marketplace allows advertisers and their agencies to level the playing field and invite in all relevant parties with the flick of their wrist when they issue RFPs. It also provides a very important trail on the bid process itself– a trail in which our SOX compliant finance and purchasing departments are very interested. Recently the eBay Media Marketplace steering committee invited cable sellers to beta test the system and tell us what they thought.

We chose to start the pilot with the cable side as they have traditionally tended to be a very progressive medium. We are very disappointed with their decision - announced today - not to participate in the eBay Media Marketplace. This is a very active time for this, as evidenced by recent announcements by DoubleClick and Google. It is apparent that portions of the media buying process are going to evolve into some form of an exchange selling format. We think it is important that advertisers, their agencies and the media sellers work jointly to develop a system that works for all parties – as the eBay Media Marketplace was intended. Adweek talks about it here.

We invite any interested parties to contact us as we move forward on this important media marketplace.

Technorati tags: eBay media marketplace

What's on the Minds of Senior Marketers?

By Will Waugh

A survey that the ANA released found the top concerns on the minds of senior marketing executives are "integrated marketing communications" and "marketing accountability". The ANA asked over 100 senior marketers to select from a comprehensive list of subjects to rank their top three issues that directly impact their marketing decisions and plans.

Integrated marketing communications (Wikipedia) jumped from the fourth spot in 2006 to the top of the list this year. Marketing accountability, which had topped the list for the previous three annual surveys, slipped to second place.

The ANA will use these findings to help shape the content of its Annual Conference: The Masters of Marketing scheduled to take place October 11 – 14, 2007 in Phoenix, AZ.

The entire selection of questions is below. The top 4 are switched around but remains consistent with what senior marketers and CMOs are telling us. Integrated marketing being number 1 does not surprise me, nor should it anyone else in this space as the marketing landscape continues to transform. The real question for those of us marketers out there is, should we be concerned that "attracting and retaining top talent" is the least of their worries?

Issue	2007	2006
Integrated marketing communications	1	4
Accountability	2	1
Aligning marketing organization with innovation	3	2
Building strong brands	4	3
Media proliferation	5	5
Consumer control over what and how they view advertising	6	8
Globalization of marketing efforts	7	10
Growth of multicultural consumer segments	8	6
Advertising creative that achieves business results	9	9
Attracting and retaining top talent	10	7

Technorati tags: CMOs marketing IMC

Why We Need Brand Specific Commercial Ratings Right Now

By Will Waugh

The ANA Television Advertising Committee released a position paper yesterday supporting the industry’s growing movement towards television commercial ratings. Today’s marketing executives are pressured to justify and evaluate their media investments in meaningful and precise ways and this development helps achieve that by providing marketers with a deeper understanding of program and commercial viewership.

The Committee believes the need for accountability is especially great in television advertising, where $70 billion is spent annually on commercial time. Here are some more reasons:

• Serving as a copy testing tool to identify the stronger and weaker executions within a commercial, enabling advertisers to pull (or fix) weaker spots and heavy up on stronger ones.
• Functioning as an indicator for commercial wear out.
• Providing a better understanding of impact differences related to such factors as pod position, length of creative, and national versus local placement.
• Establishing the value of in-program and in-game features and sponsorships.
• Helping marketers understand how DVR usage habits impact all of the above.

I have sat in on this debate since I joined the ANA two years ago. There is a lot of finger pointing back and forth. One item that sticks out in my mind is the voice of one advertiser who controls several hundred millions of dollars.

"If TV does not become as accountable as all of the new media, then advertisers will leave. When we can't explain to our executives where $100 million in TV is going but can get extremely granular with a million dollar online or mobile execution -- there's a problem."

MediaPost talks about it here. The New York Times expands on the topic here. And the International Herald Tribune even moreso here. As a reminder, Andy Jung of Kelloggs will expound on the issue further at next week's TV Forum.

Technorati tags: commercial ratings television

Marketing Accountability Reinvention

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

Our recent Masters of Marketing Annual Conference was all about marketing reinvention and we expect that need to continue into 2007 and beyond. As marketers grapple with accelerated rates of change, staying with programs because they “have always worked in the past and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” is no longer going to cut it. In order to reinvent, you have to challenge what has always worked and keep challenging it. But be advised, change is never easy. At a meeting of his I attended, marketing pundit Rex Briggs of Marketing Evolution said that one way to innovate is to “build a little, sell a little, learn a lot… If a challenger looks good, work on it, pilot test it and measure it.” When you have the facts, it will be difficult for the naysayers to bring you down. If you are an ANA member, join our new marketing accountability committee to learn how your colleagues are dealing with this and other issues. For the rest of you, join us at the ANA Marketing Accountability Forum in Palm Beach, Florida, from September 9-11, 2007. Check our website for details in the coming months.

Technorati tags: marketing accountability ROI