This week, Variety hosted Massive at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, a one-day summit dedicated to the convergence between advertising, content partners, digital media brands and next-generation technologies.
This was the first year I was able to make it out to the conference. And of the workshops presented, I thought that these three might have been the most timely given the changes we’ve seen across a quickly shifting media landscape.
The first was “Understanding Millennials for Ultimate Brand Success” by Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP of Strategic Insights & Culture Editor at NBCUniversal and author of The Curve.
In it, she says: Millennials are unlike any other demographics. They consume media differently than those who preceded them. They’re influenced differently. They have different measures for success. They’re prone to moving back home as young adults and take longer to reach adulthood overall, and there are almost as many of them (born between ’76 and ’95) as there are baby boomers.
Because of that, advertisers and marketers have had to switch gears to reach out and engage not only them but also the ever changing modern family. According to the census, only 4% of American families today consists of a married couple where the wife stays home, the husband works, and their biological children are under 18. Another massive shift from the traditional family paradigm is that a whopping 41% babies are born to single moms.
So as family life changes so must entrepreneurs, advertisers and marketers.
The second workshop was “A Conversation with Google” presented by Jennifer Prince, Head of Industry, Media and Entertainment at Google, and moderated by Gordon Paddison of Stradella Road. In it, Prince reported that organic search queries on Google can reveal box office performance about one month before a release date with about 92%-94% accuracy.
According to Andrea Chen, Google’s principal industry analyst, “In the seven-day window prior to a film’s release date, if a film receives 250,000 search queries more than a similar film, the film with more queries is likely to perform up to $4.3 million better during opening weekend. When looking at search ad click volume, if a film has 20,000 more paid clicks than a similar film, it is expected to bring in up to $7.5 million more during opening weekend.”
While Google doesn’t plan on charging studios for tracking information, any actionable data might help movie marketers fine tune campaigns to better engage potential moviegoers and maximize revenue from theatrical runs.
The third and final workshop was “The Changing Rules of Audience Measurement.” Of the speakers, Jack Wakshlag, Chief Research Officer at Turner Broadcasting System, and David F. Poltrack, Chief Research Officer at CBS Corporation and President of CBS Vision, were the most authoritative.
What’s interesting is that despite fears that alternative consumption (e.g., streaming and DVR) might erode ad revenue, major content distributors view it as just another avenue to provide their service and sell advertising though the market is still very small. This year, only 2% of viewers took to streaming the NCAA tournament on CBS, but this makes live events even more valuable as viewers can’t cannot fast-forward through programming.
One intriguing sidebar made was on the importance of sound in commercials because even when viewers get up and walk away from the TV, any information heard keeps them connected even if they’re not in the immediate vicinity.
It should go without saying but collecting and analyzing data is a necessity for marketers to develop actionable insight. That’s pretty intuitive. What isn’t is the fact that how we adapt and respond to changes in the marketplace are paramount to long-term success. I say that because it’s easier to get caught up in one component: what the competition is doing, versus improving our own processes.
If I learned anything from Massive, it’s that businesses that effectively engage their people and have their finger on the pulse of what customers want will always have a competitive advantage.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey R. Staab (CBS), Virginia Sherwood (NBCUniversal), Variety