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Amidst the Social Media Enabled D.C. Chaos: How Brands Can Best Balance Reach vs. Responsibility in Media Buys

Corporate Social Responsibility

The pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was mostly incited by social media driven fake news. It again became blatantly evident that a repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good are crucial to the stability of the U.S. democratic system. Enter Corporate Social Responsibility: Brands and media buyers at agencies should be under pressure to direct advertising to media properties practicing professional journalism. Media dollars should also be directed to  underserved communities. Learn how UM , Cadillac and Realogy  balance the reach vs. responsibility/purpose driven marketing trade off in media buys.

It is not surprising that the  D.C. chaos has actually made many brands to take the decision of pausing social advertising. According to a 2019 study published in Science by MIT Sloan professor Sinan Aral and Deb Roy and Soroush Vosoughi of the MIT Media Lab. They found falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than the truth, and reach their first 1,500 people six times faster. This effect is more pronounced with political news than other categories.  Independent, truth-seeking professional journalists apply reporting methodologies and a code of ethics that makes them accountable and transparent. Corporate social responsibility should make sure that brands advertise in trusted media properties.

However, brand marketers and the media agencies that cater to them not only need brand safety but also reach at a low cost for media buys to be efficient and ultimately obtain leads and sales.

News Sites: How it Works in Practice…

Corporate Social Responsibility
David Queamante, SVP, Client Business Partner, UM Worldwide

David Queamante,  SVP, Client Business Partner, UM Worldwide tells Portada that when he worked at “an Automotive brand, recently, we saw that News Programming has a high index among people who earn the income we wanted to see, and who buy the vehicle segments we were promoting. However, on the Finance brand that I focus on currently, we see that News Programming indexes below 100 for people who will be in-the-market for our type of loan in the next 12 months. I still try to keep News programming as part of the buy, but I’m limited in how much support I can put behind that content when other programming indexes much higher for that target.”

I still try to keep News programming as part of the buy, but I’m limited in how much support I can put behind that content when other programming indexes much higher for that target. 

Queamante add thats “when we run ads for this company on Social Media, we see that our Cost-Per KPIs is much lower than what we see when we run display ads anywhere else. At the end of the day, I can’t  avoid Social Media without lowering my leads and visits. Now, we work very hard with our paid social buyers to avoid controversial/divisive posts and content as much as possible.”

At the end of the day, I can’t  avoid Social Media without lowering my leads and visits. Now, we work very hard with our paid social buyers to avoid controversial/divisive posts and content as much as possible.

Journalist Powered Content Ratings…

Separately, IPG Mediabrands, the owner of UM,  has agreed to begin using NewsGuard’s journalist-powered content ratings system for its digital news media buys in the United States, and other key markets. NewsGuard — which was founded by news media pioneer Steven Brill as a solution to the deluge of disinformation being promulgated by questionable publishers and sources — relies on human intelligence as opposed to machine-learning algorithms to detect, organize and rate the veracity of news and information publishers.  Many brands and media agencies recognize that corporate social responsibility includes advertising in trusted media properties.  IPG/ Mediabrands plans plans to use the ratings as part of its programmatic media buys made on news and information websites. “Our partnership with NewsGuard has already helped expand the scope of quality inventory available while ensuring ads remain in brand-safe and brand-suitable environments,” says Mediabrands Global Brand Safety Officer Joshua Lowcock said in a statement announcing the expansion of its agreement.

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Corporate Social Responsibility: How Diversity Media Buys Work  in Practice…

Jason Riveiro, Realogy
Jason Riveiro, Senior Director, Global Growth Markets & Inclusion, Realogy

Another demand consumers have for 2021 is that brands should support media properties that target diverse and underserved audiences. Some members of the brand marketing community agree: “Inclusivity in messaging should be substantial and authentic, but also should include investment in media targeting underserved communities”,  says Jason Riveiro, Senior Director, Global Growth Markets & Inclusion tells Portada.

 

Advertising in 2021
Alexis Kerr,  Cadillac

How does this work in practice? Alexis Kerr, Cadillac’s Head of Multicultural Marketing | Multicultural Strategy, Content and Execution, notes that she has found creative ways to nurture her multicultural media partners to ensure they serve her in various different ways vs just ROI.  “Media partnerships like Hispanicize and Revolt are great examples of how partners have been able to work with us to meet those goals. We have increased our spend to support diverse communities and partnerships,” she asserts.

MediaBrands has made it an internal mandate to increase or improve our investment on Diversity-Owned media partners. However, we don’t want to just pick an arbitrary % of the media budget.

Custom Solutions that Balance Reach vs. Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility should include that brands advertise in trusted media properties. 
UM’s David  Queamante  notes that his agency has worked hard to build custom solutions that balance reach with responsibility by making it easier to identify and work with Diversity-owned and Diversity-serving media partners, while still delivering on campaign goals and KPIs. “MediaBrands has made it an internal mandate to increase or improve our investment on Diversity-Owned media partners. However, we don’t want to just pick an arbitrary % of the media budget.  It may not be possible to spend a certain amount of money with diversity-owned partners – many of them lack the scale that non-Diversity-owned partners have. Due to this lower scale, investing an arbitrary amount with these partners may also have negative impact on the campaign reach and exposure to our target audiences.

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Catalogue of Diversity Owned Partners

Queamante adds that the first thing he does is to “start with a database that one of our internal agencies (MAVEN) maintains and updates several times a year. This catalogues Diversity Owned partners across more than just ethnicity. It includes Veteran-owned, Women-owned, Disability-owned and more.
The second step involves to “match the media partners on this list with our custom targets; we call them High Value Audiences (HVA). We identify these audiences using our Acxiom data stack, and we’re able to match these audiences back to media behavior. Based on the HVA media consumption of these Diversity-owned partners we’re able to create investment benchmarks that are specific to each brand and their unique audience.”  “Since these benchmarks factor in HVA media consumption, they have a positive impact on reach and exposure levels for our target.”, Queamante concludes.

 

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Latin America

Giuliano Stiglitz, CEO, NUMATEC: “AI, Ecommerce, Customer Data and CTV Have the Most Growth Potential for Martech Investments”

MarTech Investments

MarTech  investments are a key driver of the communications industry, both for entrepreneurs and investors.  Recently created NUMATEC comprehends more than 300 employees in 22 countries, and is led by a team of entrepreneurs who have successfully founded and exited multiple ventures, and now pool their resources and companies under one umbrella. We interviewed Giuliano Stiglitz, CEO of NUMATEC, to better understand his innovative company and learn about the MarTech (Marketing Technologies) sectors he sees the most potential for growth in. Numatec particularly seeks to grow in.

Corporate MarTech budgets will continue to grow globally. This is one of the main reasons why industry veteran Giuliano Stiglitz recently founded NUMATEC. According to Stiglitz the following four MarTech subsectors are particularly primed for growth:”First, AI-If you go beyond the fact that it is perhaps the most misused word in the industry, in its truest meaning, AI is the driving force behind automation and evolution of many of the platforms used today.” Second Stiglitz sees eCommerce as eCommerce is playing an important role “and its growth was accelerated by the pandemic and there is a growing demand for services that help eCommerce businesses succeed.” The third major growth sector for MarTech Investments is Customer Data: “Everything that has to do with capturing, understanding and harnessing the power of user specific data is key. Lots of growth here as we are just at the beginning of this trend.”. Finally, Stiglitz expects substantial growth in CTV and “generally speaking TV converting to Digital, still a lot more to go (hence lots of growth) to bring TV 100% to the ‘other side’”.

AI is the driving force behind automation and evolution of many of the platforms used today.

NUMATEC’s MarTech Investments

NUMATEC’s current portfolio of companies is focused on the growth trends described above as its subsidiary companies including Si Señor agency, Cookie Lab and The Tech Partners offer many of these services.
NUMATEC has allotted a war chest to continue its rapid expansion investing in MarTech, seeking other like-minded founders who wish to join the group and fuel growth. The main criteria for M&A will be whether companies complement the current stack, integration and over-arching strategy.
Geographically, Stiglitz sees a huge potential in Latin America: “Despite the fact that our origins are in LatAm and some of our businesses have been operating for quite some time in the region, there are still a few markets where we haven’t entered yet, notably Brazil, and we intend to cover the entire region. We are also very excited about expansion in the U.S. and Europe, where we see a huge potential for our services.”

We still see a huge potential in Latin America, where some of our business have been operating for some time.

NumatecStiglitz tells Portada that NUMATEC typically takes a majority stake of between 51% and 100% in the companies it invests in. “Sometimes we buy a stake in an existing company, sometimes we fund an entrepreneur who wants to start his or her own business and sometimes we incubate the business in-house. We provide guidance from Miami, but we incubate globally including Europe and LatAm.” Stiglitz says NUMATEC “typically is able to achieve profitability very quickly, and expects returns within a one to two-year timeframe.” NUMATEC generates revenue through its investments and the services it provides to its portfolio companies.

We typically are able to achieve profitability very quickly, and we expect returns within the first two years.

Stiglitz prefers not to limit or discourage potential partners by sharing a specific number to describe the maximum or minimum NUMATEC will invest in: “I will tell you though that we have invested as little as US $100,000  to launch a business and as much as US $1,000,000. The range is really quite broad.”

MarTech Investments: Holding Company and Investor

Giuliano Stiglitz
Giuliano Stiglitz, CEO, NUMATEC

Asked about the ultimate goal of NUMATEC (e.g. selling its portfolio companies, increase in size etc.), Stiglitz answers that he likes to say that NUMATEC has two or perhaps three souls. “On one hand, we are a holding company and an investor so our ultimate goal here is to maximize shareholders returns. We do that through acquisitions, through funding exceptional entrepreneurs and by incubating new companies in-house. We have a well-oiled and proven methodology, and we won’t stop doing that. This relentless activity has resulted in quite a diversification: by having different lines of businesses (within the digital marketing space) and by operating in such a diverse group of countries. We can clearly see some buyers interested in what we have built, but that said, we are not currently looking for buyers. We do see a lot of growth ahead for several years and we will keep our options open to other avenues, including an IPO. “We are also the perfect partner for Martech companies eager to attain more market share and accelerate their growth in the markets where we operate. We want to be seen as the market leader in channel partnerships and distribution for top-tier AdTech and Martech companies; this is one of our ultimate goals that goes hand in hand with the first one. Last but not least, we want to be seen as the ideal investor for the most talented entrepreneurs in our industry. By helping a new generation of founders achieve success, we’ll be able to achieve our goal and we’ ll have accomplished something meaningful in the process.”

We want to be seen as the market leader in channel partnerships and distribution for top-tier AdTech and MarTech companies.

Providing Brands with a Wide Array of Marketing Services

By undertaking MarTech investments, NUMATEC intends to build the world’s premier network of service providers for today’s global brands. Stiglitz emphasizes that NUMATEC’S objective is to provide brands (corporations) a wide array of marketing services through different NUMATEC portfolio companies. “Our objective is two-fold: the first, strategically investing in technology enabled service companies in the Martech ecosystem, and the second, partnering with the best available technologies to accelerate growth and distribution. By doing this we will be able to provide, as a group, the most complete set of services that compete with industry leaders,” he concludes.

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- 6 things to know

Study Claims Contextual Targeting Is More Cost Efficient than Behavioral

In contextual  targeting, advertising media are controlled on the basis of the content of a website using linguistic elements. The advertisements themselves are selected and served by automated systems based on the context of what a user is looking at. Contextual advertising helps a brand understand what a consumer might like without needing personally identifiable information. Results of a new study show that digital advertising campaigns that employ contextual targeting are more cost-efficient than behaviorally targeted campaigns.

Amidst a wave of data privacy regulation and third party cookie phase-outs that have digital advertisers scrambling for solutions to maintain campaign efficiency and scale, contextual targeting has frequently been touted as a data privacy-friendly alternative to behavioral targeting––but until now the viability of that claim has gone largely untested. Tech and media firm GumGum published a case study called Understanding Contextual Relevance and Efficiency: A Comparison of Contextual Intelligence Vendors and Behavioral Targeting. Findings seem to give credence to the promise of contextual as results indicate that digital advertising  campaigns that employ contextual targeting are more cost-efficient than behaviorally targeted campaigns. The study was sponsored in partnership with Dentsu Aegis Network and conducted by an independent third-party researcher.

Contextual Targeting
GumGum CEO Phil Schraeder.
It is fabulous to finally see a head-to-head contextual-behavioral match up and get hard data behind contextual targeting’s value.

“Machine learning-backed contextual targeting has been a central tenet of our offering since the get-go, so to some degree, from our perspective, this study states the obvious, but it is fabulous to finally see a head-to-head contextual-behavioral match up and get hard data behind contextual targeting’s value,” said GumGum CEO Phil Schraeder. “There are plenty of doubting Thomas’ about contextual as an answer to the cookie’s death and this ought to give them some faith.”

While the study was principally designed to better understand the overall effectiveness of contextual intelligence in comparison to behavioral, it also sought to benchmark four of the top contextual intelligence vendors in the industry. For the study, Dentsu Aegis Network ran live campaigns for four of its major brand clients, including Sephora, across four contextual intelligence vendors, as well as by leveraging behavioral targeting. The campaigns utilized the same brand safe inventory. The campaign served 1M impressions, which were measured for cost efficiency and content relevance.

We needed to gauge the effectiveness of the numerous emergent contextual intelligence offerings.
Contextual Targeting
Brian Monahan, Global Client President and Head of US Ventures for Dentsu Aegis Network.

“In a world with diminishing access to audience targeting, as responsible partners to our clients, we need the most robust understanding of potential best practices and tools available for success,” explained Brian Monahan, Global Client President and Head of US Ventures for Dentsu Aegis Network. “Beyond value-testing contextual, we also needed to gauge the effectiveness of the numerous emergent contextual intelligence offerings. This study gave us both of those things––and the results are compelling.”

Indeed, the study found that, taking into account CPMs, the contextual Intelligence vendor in-demo impressions (eCPM) cost 29% less than behaviorally targeted in-demo impressions, with GumGum Verity™ impressions costing somewhat less (36%)––and overall that for CPC and vCPM the costs of using contextual targeting were lower than behavioral (48% and 41% respectively).

 

For the study, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings Reporting, Xandr, GumGum, MOAT provided the cost efficiency measurement of impressions. Appen, a third party vendor specializing in human annotation of urls, measured content relevance.

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Changing Places

Futbol Sites Receives Investment, Loida Casares, Charles Gabriel

Changing Places

Jordan Gnat, Robin Chhabra, Andy Clerkson, Loida Ruiz….People invest in companies, change positions, get promoted or move to other companies. Portada is here to tell you about it. Check out last week’s Changing Places here.

Jordan Gnat, Robin Chhabra and Andy Clerkson Invest in Futbol Sites

Futbol SitesDigital sports media group Futbol Sites announced that it is joining forces with Jordan Gnat, Robin Chhabra and Andy Clerkson, who together have acquired a significant interest in the Group, as well as appointing Mr. Gnat as Vice-Chairman of Futbol Sites. The terms of the investment were not disclosed.
Federico Grinberg, CEO of Futbol Sites tells Portada that a “key element of the company’s strategy going forward will be to accelerate growth in the U.S., both in the U.S. Hispanic as well as the general market. Futbol sites recently launched a new website catering to the U.S. general market. ”
Grinberg adds that online sports betting has had a significant advance in the United States and Futbol Sites also aims to be a major player in this sector. Jordan Gnat is a Senior Business Executive with over 25 years of leadership experience and over 17 years in the global gaming and media industries. Most recently Jordan was the Group Senior Vice President of The Stars Group, the parent company of PokerStars, FOX Bet, PokerStars
Casino, SkyBetting and Gaming and Oddschecker Group Media. Robin Chhabra is an experienced executive in the online gambling industry and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of FOX Bet, a landmark partnership between Flutter Entertainment and FOX Sports in the USA. He was previously on the Executive Committees of The Stars Group, William Hill and Inspired Gaming Group where he focused on strategy, business development and M&A and expanded the global footprint of each of these companies. Andy Clerkson has spent three decades building brands for media, sports betting and gaming companies in the USA, UK and Europe. In 2019, he helped The Stars Group and FOX Sports set up FOX Bet, for whom he is a senior advisor. In 2007 Andy founded influential digital marketing agency Grand Parade, which specialized in sports betting and was acquired by William Hill in 2016.

 

Loida Casares

Loida CasaresLoida Casares has taken on a new role as Account Manager for Houston Public Media and Market Enginuity. She manages an account desk and sells corporate sponsorships for KUHF 88.7 NPR, Channel 8 PBS, digital media and podcasts for Houston Public Media and Market Enginuity. She also sells multi-market campaigns that include any of the other 17 markets that Market Enginuity represents. She will report to Millie Adan-Garza, Director of Sales and Corporate Sponsorships. Casares began her professional career in advertising 27 years ago at the Houston Chronicle. Until recently, Casares worked as a Senior Account Manager at the Houston Chronicle.

Charles Gabriel

Charles Gabriel

WildBrain Spark, the digital media division of WildBrain—one of the world’s largest independent kids’ and family entertainment companies—has appointed Charles Gabriel to the newly created position of Vice President and Head of US Advertising Sales. WildBrain Spark builds brands through the management and creation of preschool and children’s entertainment content on platforms such as YouTube, Amazon Video Direct and ROKU. WildBrain Spark’s branded YouTube network is one of the largest of its kind, featuring more than 260,000 videos for more than 800 kids’ channels in over 30 languages. Every 90 days, one in every three kids worldwide with access to YouTube watches video content on the WildBrain Spark network, which has over 168 million subscribers, and approximately 4 billion views per month.

 

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- Feature

To the Portada Community: We Are Here to Help

Dear Members of the Portada Community,

We hope this message finds you healthy and safe. We know that the coronavirus crisis is bringing up many until very recently unthinkable challenges for the marketing community.  We deeply appreciate the relationships we have built, and we understand this is also a difficult time for your brands and businesses. We want to tell you that we are here to help. Please, let us know if you have any inquiries or if there is anything we can do for you at this time.

Over the next weeks we will be closely monitoring the situation and are looking forward to soon continue providing you:

  • Year-round participation in 24 virtual and in-person brand decision maker workshops belonging to 6 different units of the Portada Council System.
  • More than 800 1:1 meetings with pre-screened brand marketers annually.
  • Thought-leadership opportunities on topics chosen by brand marketers based on their needs.
  • Best-in-class digital marketing solutions through Portada media.


Throughout these challenging times, we will also continue providing marketing information, insights, and industry updates you rely on to drive your business forward on our website www.portada-online.com and mercadotecnia.portada-online.com.

Stay safe! We look forward to seeing you in the near future once the coronavirus is behind us.

Your Portada Team

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- Feature

How the Coronavirus Will Impact Marketing

Short term it will likely have an impact and it may also  accelerate trends that are already under way. How will the coronavirus impact marketing? Four things to take into account.

1. Short term: Uncertainty and Risk Aversion…

The coronavirus may soon be contained and ultimately not have a major impact on economic activity levels, similarly to the 2003 SARS outbreak and the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. In the short term, however, things are likely going to get worse before they stabilize. That’s because virus outbreaks, by definition, initially have a very high growth rate of positive cases.  Uncertainty rules.  “I think the reason we were not specific was just because I think at the moment, it’s really just unknowable,” WPP CEO Mark Read, said during the company’s earnings call last Thursday February 27, when asked about the business impact of coronavirus on WPP’s China business. “It’s more unknowable today than probably it was Friday, if we had this meeting Friday of last week, we may [have] given you a different answer then we give you today.” As COVID 19 cases grow outside of China, the uncertainty is also increasing in the rest of the World, including the rest of Asia, North America and Europe (the main marketing hubs).
Not surprisingly, all major agency holding stocks have taken hits along with the broader market last week. With WPP’s shares falling 15%; IPG is down 5%; Omnicom is down nearly 4%; Dentsu Aegis fell 2.5%; and Publicis Groupe down 5.6%. In the real economy,  global tourism and retail have been hit particularly hard, as Chinese tourists provide a major source of income for many markets.

2. Coronavirus Impact on Marketing: More emphasis on Virtual – Digital Marketing

In the short term companies are starting to restrict travel and encouraging remote work (e.g. Amazon told its employees to avoid all non essential travel for now including within the U.S.) Facebook, on its part,  last week cancelled a global marketing conference in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Activations and sponsorships at live events may be impacted negatively as marketing, including event marketing will become more virtual. This is not good news in a year where analysts were expecting to see an uptick in media investments from marketers eager to capitalize on events like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The virus may also accelerate a trend that was happening anyway. Executive meetings and virtual events over hangouts will increase. For an example check out Portada’s Council System of brand marketers, which conducts 12 brand decision maker virtual workshops a year.

3. Driver for E-Commerce…

In parts of China, major retailers like Starbucks, Uniqlo, Nike and Apple have temporarily shuttered their stores, while small and medium-size retailers are being hit particularly hard as foot traffic dwindles. This may happen in the U.S. in areas that have been particularly negatively affected by the outbreak. Reduced in-store activity will be a driver for increased e-commerce activity and e-commerce marketing. The big caveat here is if the outbreak creates serious supply chain issues (at producers, shipping and overall logistics e.g. Apple and Microsoft warning of supply chain problems last week), therefore limiting the amount of goods that can be purchased by online buyers.

…particularly Online Grocery…

Housebound consumers in China are turning to online groceries for their daily food supply. According to French retailer Carrefour, vegetable deliveries increased by 600% year over year during the Lunar New Year period. Chinese online retailer JD.com reported that its online grocery sales grew 215% year over year to 15,000 tons during a 10-day period between late January and early February. Concerns about food delivery due to possible food contamination have spurred recent innovation in contactless pickup and delivery services by companies such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. McDonald’s has implemented contactless pickup and delivery of Big Macs, fries and other menu items across China as the outbreak has unfolded. Customers order remotely – on mobile phones or by computers in store – and employees seal the meals in bags and put them in a special spot for pickup without human contact, McDonald’s says on its website.

4. Coronavirus Impact on Marketing: Boost to At-Home Entertainment, Video Streaming and Gaming

If employees are forced to stay at home more, it will also impact how consumers spend their leisure time as they may have to avoid public gathering spaces, like movie theatres, concerts and gyms, leaving more time for them to binge on home entertainment and video services. Advertising revenues of companies that heavily bet on video content and advertising ,e.g. Roku, Youtube, Netflix and others should benefit from a public that’s stuck at home.

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