Study: Most location-based ad spending is wasted on bad targeting

Analysis completed by Location Sciences found that up to $65K of every $100K spent on location advertising fell outside of the targeted area or is based on signals of insufficient quality to deliver targeting requirements. According to the report, 29% percent of location-based media spending went to delivering ad impressions outside of the geotargeted area, while 36% was wasted because of a lack of quality location signals.

Reaching consumers with location-based ads is considered one of the most powerful promotional strategies, underpinning the increased spending on mobile, out-of-home (OOH) and experiential marketing. The ability to connect with on-the-go customers when they're ready to shop, or to direct them to nearby stores, restaurants and entertainment venues is a key advantage for mobile platforms. However, those capabilities are undermined when location-based ads are misdirected because of poor-quality data or signals. Read more here in this short article in Mobile Marketer:  https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/study-most-location-based-ad-spending-is-wasted-on-bad-targeting/561908/

Out-of-Home Advertising - Isn't that sooo Yesterday?

Outdoor advertising has been around for hundreds of years because it’s a proven method of reaching a wide audience. Even in today’s digital world, outdoor advertising is gaining new momentum. According to Nielsen, one in four Americans has posted an image of a billboard ad on Instagram, delivering double exposure for the businesses involved. In the past decade technological advancements that have incorporated digital technology has helped OOH advertising become more versatile than ever before. Digital Billboards can change the ads they show based on the time of day, the weather or just about any data set that you like. This has dramatically improved their ability to have greater relevancy and be more engaging.

What are the benefits of Out of Home Advertising?

At this stage you’re probably thinking that Out of Home sounds interesting, but why should you choose it above any other form of advertising? How will it ensure that your business gets the best bang for your buck?

Good question. If you haven’t run a campaign before (or even if you have!), the world of Out of Home Advertising can be very overwhelming, and no one wants to jump into a marketing platform that you don’t understand and might not suit you. However, there is a reason (several) OOH has remained relevant and is the only legacy ad medium that is still growing….

Here are the main ones:

People see them!

We’re always on the move. So, one of the biggest advantages of Out of Home Advertising is that more audiences will see them when they’re out and about. Billboards and other forms of OOH ads have also become a natural and accepted part of most landscapes; they can’t be avoided with ad blockers!

 It is cost effective

Although OOH is used a lot by big B2C brands, the increased flexibility of ad placements and the reduced cost of putting them up due to the invention of digital billboards has lowered the barriers of entry meaning lower costs and more effectiveness.

It can create a lasting impression

Billboards create a lasting impression on those that see them. From brand awareness to response marketing OOH works on both the conscious and subconscious levels. Their huge reach also makes them the perfect tool for mass marketing.

This is perhaps best explained by Bob, who is a Marketer and the Writer of the D Connector Blog. In a piece published on the Future of Outdoor Advertising, he writes: “There is a piece of research that has always stayed with me. In focus groups, people will remember seeing a brand’s new television ad, even though no such ad has been on air. It turns out that what people are recalling is the billboards they pass each and every day. People don’t forget billboards. Although they sometimes mislabel them.”

How digital has changed Out of Home Advertising

As statistics show, Out of Home Advertising is only going to get bigger and better. According to Magna, Out of Home holds around 6% of global ad spend (which totals a not-too-shabby $500 billion), and its market share has remained stable for the past 5 years. However, its growth is being propelled by the emergence of Digital Out of Home (DOOH).

Why DOOH is an affordable form of advertising

Although OOH has always brought many benefits to advertisers & brands in terms of raising awareness, these have only been amplified by digitalization. This is one of the key reasons for its continued growth and dominance. Previously, Out of Home was costly, competitive, and difficult to do. However, DOOH is solving many of these problems.

Firstly, let’s look at cost. DOOH is far more flexible in terms of placement than traditional OOH. They do not require installation, there is greater flexibility on the minimum periods assisting marketers in delivering campaigns that are both contextually relevant and timely.

Production costs are significantly lower. Static bulletins & posters needs to be printed and distributed. Digital formats just need to be resized to a few variants.

Other advantages of DOOH include the fact that your creative can be live within hours, incorporate video as well as animation plus you can choose exactly when your campaign ends.

DOOH is encouraging user engagement

Advances in DOOH technology is helping it to have a bigger and longer lasting impact on consumers. After Porsche unveiled their first interactive billboard in 2015, many brands are now adding interactive elements to their ads by making them tappable and/or interactive. One example of how the former is being used is by Warner Bros. “The Dark Knight Rises" campaign. You can check it out here - https://youtu.be/2pnr_nP-Ek0

All’s good, but what’s in it for me?

This form of advertising has many benefits, and with the help of digital, it’s safe to say that it’s here to stay. Marketers are certainly noticing the opportunities it holds in terms of targeting audiences at various touch points throughout the day, ensuring they get the best results. With OOH becoming more flexible and affordable, it’s something that all businesses should be considering. And if your competitors aren’t using OOH, then you’ll have an edge on them if you do.

At 3sixtyReach, we’re making this even better by ensuring that our clients get the right exposure by leveraging the benefits of multiple advertising platforms. OOH/DOOH is one of the many ways we can help you with your business or brand’s Marketing Strategies. Please feel free to contact us to find out more…

TV Binge and Time shifting Update

The first “TiVo State of TV Report,” offering insights into viewing habits, as well as the top-streamed and time-shifted programs, was released on Thursday. In general the research indicates that Television viewers prefer to watch sports events and animated cartoons in real time, while saving dramas and sci-fi shows for later. Not surprisingly, they also prefer shorter commercials and tend to hit the fast-forward button quite a bit. These were just a few of the findings. Here are some other highlights:

• Drama and science-fiction genres deliver the highest percentage of time-shifted viewing on prime-time cable and broadcast networks.
• Crime dramas ranked third in the prime-time genre, with 59 percent of crime dramas watched on a time-shifted basis.
• “Scorpion" and "How to Get Away with Murder" ranked as the hottest new programs on the TiVo Commitment Chart, which tracks the volume of Season Passes set for new programming.
• On average, TiVo subscribers pause their favorite shows 8.03 times, hit rewind 7.83 times and press the fast-forward button 25.11 times in one day.

TiVo said its viewing analysis was collected from an anonymous daily sample of 350,000 active TiVo DVRs. The streaming analysis is based on viewing data from the third quarter of 2014, collected from an anonymous sample of 25,000 households with the company’s streaming services. More: Advanced Television 12/19/14 - TiVo: Time-shift and binging proliferate and Investor.com 12/19/14 - Time-Shifted TV Viewing Now The Norm, Study Shows

TV Everywhere Growth Surges 388%

Television is changing and viewers are embracing and personalizing it as they're consumption habits morph. According to Adobe's bi-annual Video Benchmark Report, authenticated TV Everywhere viewing surged 388% in the second quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Indicating that more people watched more TV online than ever before while programmers witnessed broader use as unique monthly viewers increased by 146 per cent across browsers and TV apps. Although online TV consumption still remains fragmented across platforms, gaming consoles and OTT devices gained the largest percentage of market share and Android apps surpassed desktop browsers as access points for watching TV online.

The findings from Adobe’s Report are based on aggregated and anonymous data from more than 1,300 media and entertainment properties using Adobe Marketing Cloud and Adobe Primetime. They noted that a series of major global sports events buoyed results, including the Sochi Winter Olympics, March's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and the summer's World Cup. The report includes 165 billion total online video starts and 1.53 billion TV Everywhere authentications across 250 pay-TV service providers covering 99 per cent of pay-TV households in the US. The analysis also examined TV Everywhere content from 105 TV channels and more than 300 TV apps and sites. More: 10/21/14 FierceCable.com - TV Everywhere use surges: authenticated viewing jumped 388% in Q2, Adobe says  Also MediaPost.com 10/21/14 - Devices And OTT Lead Video Consumption Growth

OTT gains on traditional TV particularly among Millennials.

Late yesterday, measurement specialist comScore, issued a research paper titled "The U.S. Total Video Report" that looks at shifting TV viewing habits in the digital age. There's little doubt that American's viewing patterns are quickly changing, and our youth are leading the way.  The study – The U.S. Total Video Report, which tabulated results from 1,159 respondents in August – found that Millennials (adults 18 -34), watch original TV shows on digital platforms one-third of the time. ComScore notes that the older the viewer, the more likely to watch on a TV set. In other bad news for TV broadcasters, comScore found that 1 in 6 millennials hadn't watched an original series on a TV set in the past month. Instead, they're getting their video from set-top boxes such as Roku and Apple TV, and game consoles.

Unsurprisingly, Millennials are also more likely to be cord-nevers or cord-cutters and they are more likely to time-shift their viewing: 46 percent of them time-shift shows, while only 35 percent of those 35 to 54 do so.  Among other findings, consumers who subscribe to paid digital video services are more likely to binge-view TV shows over a monthly period – 87% vs. 69%. TV via the DVR (43%) is the preferred binge-viewing platform, followed by the TV via VOD (19%); Internet connected TV devices (12%); live TV – a category that includes reruns or marathons from MVPDs – (11%); tablets (4%), desktops/laptops (3%); and smartphones (2%).

While comScore's results are interesting, their methodology  and approach called Total Video to track unduplicated audience metrics across platforms has some flaws. ComScore surveyed 1,159 viewers with an online questionnaire, so those surveyed are all active internet users. The report is available for free download (registration required). MORE: TechCrunch 10/14/14 - Netflix Leads In U.S. Digital Video Subscriptions In Home And Among Millennials by Ingrid Lunden

Nielsen - Live TV Viewing Still Dominates

No surprise that Nielsen recently reported that live viewing continues to dominate overall TV consumption, but there are pronounced differences between individual markets. Their Local Watch Report released Thursday which focuses on device penetration and consumption habits, found that throughout the U.S. daily live-viewing still heavily out ranks time-shifted viewing for adults 25-54.

Interesting fact from the report reflect that viewers in Pittsburgh watch the most live TV daily, coming in at 5 hours and 19 minutes, while San Francisco watches the least: 3 hours and 27 minutes. Most cities averaged between 27 and 49 minutes of time-shifted viewing daily, and 3 minutes to 15 minutes of OTT viewing. In primetime, the numbers begin to even-out between live-viewing and 7 day time-shifted viewing. Cities including Houston (47% vs. 44%) and Los Angeles (49% vs. 44%) almost split equally. In Dallas, time-shifted viewing is higher, at 47%, than live-viewership, 44%. Pittsburgh continues to prefer live TV, at 68% in-the-moment viewership versus 22% time-shifted viewing.
 
As smart technology continues to influence how and when viewers watch television, 72% of Americans own a smart phone while 41% owns a tablet. Eighty-two-percent of Orlando residents own a smartphone, the most in the country, while D.C. out-performs in tablet usage with 56% of the nation’s capital residents owning one.
 
Nielsen has tied this information, along with a case study comparing the media habits of San Franciscans and Cincinnati residents, to the upcoming mid-term election. They believe the localized information will help broadcasters “tailor their messages in just the right way." More: Nielsen.com 08/14/14 - Local Watch: Where You Live and its Impact on Your Choices

Cord Cutting Slowing

Recent reports state that connected devices have exceeded 1 billion home makes one wonder where the "cord cutters" really are when new data from analysts MoffettNathanson shows that the pay-TV business only lost about 300,000 subscribers in Q2. But that’s basically flat compared to a year ago, and that’s a change from the year-on-year declines of the previous few quarters.
And after factoring in the housing market a key driver for pay TV the research firm concludes that “it appears that cord cutting slowed to an annualized rate of 400k homes, a meaningful deceleration and well below the peak rates of cord cutting seen in 2012.” More: Recode.net 08/07/14 - "What Happened to all the Cord Cutters?"

Connected TV Device Market to Grow 100% by 2017

If you don't have a streaming media player (we have two and I'm considering a third already!) by now, it's likely you will in the next few years. According to the NPD Group, the number of streaming media devices in the U.S. will reach 204 million with in the next three years, an increase of 100% and a total that will be more than double the number of projected households connected to the Internet.
The connection rate is also projected to increase. While 60% of Internet-capable devices are currently connected, NPD projects that 76% of installed units will be connected by 2017. The evolution of hardware and digital content distribution is constantly changing the TV viewing experience," said Buffone, executive director of NPD Connected Intelligence, “The hardware is able to engage with consumers in ways that it hadn’t before. Over the coming years, the consumer’s preferred device for apps on TV will be shaped by the next generation of video game consoles, Smart TVs, and a new wave of streaming media players.” MORE: RapidTVNews.com 07/23/2014 - Connected TV device market to skyrocket in US or MediaPost 07/22/14 - Connected TV Device Market Set To Explode

Cable Companies High Speed Data Subscribers soon to surpass video customers

Signaling a major shift in priorities for cable customers, a Moody's Investor Service report says cable operators will, beginning in 2015, start serving more broadband subscribers than video subscribers. The company estimates that subscribers to cable broadband and video services pulled even at about 50 million apiece at the beginning of 2014. As more and more customers consider broadband service an must-have product – a Pew Research Center study showed that 53% of adults said it would be “very hard or impossible” to give up their broadband service while just 35% said the same for TV – Moody’s predicts that cable operators will make it easier to unbundle broadband offerings. MORE: Multichannel News 07/24/14 - Moody’s: Broadband Subs To Surpass Video in 2015

Connected TV Devices Exceed 1 Billion

New research from Parks Associates and also from Strategy Analytics puts the number of connected TV devices, which includes set-top boxes, smart televisions, game consoles and more, now exceeds 1 billion installed units, and are on pace to hit the 2 billion mark by 2018. No surprise that Roku is now the most widely used streaming media player in 44 percent of American homes that watch online video through their living room TV.

The studies verify that nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of pay-TV subscribers have at least one device connected to their TV, according to Parks, an increase from 53 percent in 2013.  Roku devices and Apple TVs account for 72 percent of streaming media device sales in the U.S. in 2013. Up and coming Google’s Android TV/Chromecast and Amazon's new entry, FireTV could both prove to be strong future competitors, the report notes, while also pointing out Apple TV as a "sleeping giant." MORE: 07/10/14 - techcrunch.com - Connected TV Market Crosses 1B Devices As Google Pins Its Hopes On Android TV or ParksAssociates - The Evolving Market for Streaming Media Devices (sub. req.) or 07/09/14 FierceCable - Parks: Roku owns 44% of the U.S. OTT device market

Netflix Maintains Lead over Amazon for Top Movies, TV Shows

Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson opened the book on his findings of how Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and Redbox Instant compare in their offerings of top 50 movies available for streaming over the past three years and top 75 TV shows available from the past four years. The report revealed that Netflix continues to outpace Amazon.com’s subscription-video service in terms of content-licensing, delivering substantially more of the top movies and TV shows from the last few years.  There’s no question that Netflix, by stocking more hit shows and movies, would to some degree appeal to a wider base of consumers than Amazon’s service. But Netflix hasn’t decisively won the SVOD war: Amazon remains aggressive in looking for exclusive TV licensing deals to expand its 40,000-plus title Prime Instant Video service. More: Deadline 07/03/14 - Amazon Narrows Gap with Netflix in Hit TV Shows but not Movies
 

64% of U.S. Homes Have one or more CE Devices Connected to the Internet

According to a new research report from Parks Associates, (64%) of US broadband households have at least one consumer electronics device connected to the Internet, which could include a smart TV, Blu-ray player, game console, set-top box, a digital media receiver or Google Chromecast. Gaming consoles were found to be the most popular of connected devices. The report also noted that of the 50+% of U.S. households that use connected consumer electronics devices also subscribe to Netflix. By comparison, Amazon, which has made significant gains in the OTT video market this past year now has nearly 20 per cent of all US broadband households as Amazon Prime Instant Video subscribers.

Google Says YouTube Activity Impacts Television Viewing

Google is citing a new study tracking TV viewer interest over the course of the
year based on Google search and YouTube views. While Facebook and Twitter scramble to attract more TV advertisers to their platforms, Google also wants a bigger piece of the pie. It believes TV networks should view YouTube as a cornerstone of their marketing campaigns, an indispensable tool for speaking to younger viewers. According to the study, 90% of TV viewers also visit Google and YouTube and their online behavior is a clear indicator of a show’s popularity. More: MediaPost Search Marketing Daily 04/10/14 - Google Links Searches, YouTube To Television Viewing and The Wrap 04/10/14 - Like Facebook and Twitter, Google Tries to Prove TV Needs Its Help 

Apple TV, Roku _ Who's Winning the OTT War and what are we Watching

Among those who use streaming media players, Roku owners access new subscription video platforms more than Apple TV which becomes more interesting when you factor in that currently there are more Apple TV devices deployed. This new research was published and presented at this week's NAB show by Parks Associates where they profiled the different device owners streaming and content purchasing habits. Their findings showed that 86% of Roku owners use one or more subscription OTT service, versus only 77% of Apple TV owners. Additionally, 75% of Roku owners use Netflix, compared to 63% among the Apple TV crowd. As a point of difference, more Apple TV owners use Amazon Prime Instant Video – 40% versus 28% and Apple TV also has a clear lead in sales passing $1 billion last year. On a similar topic, the latest study from video delivery firm Qwilt shows that Amazon's Instant Video is the third largest video site (March 2014), behind Netflix (57.5 percent) and YouTube (16.9 percent). Although it's sitting at a modest 3%, Amazon is still beating out Hulu (2.8 percent). I expect to see this number rising  considerably, since this data was collected before the Fire TV set-top box hit the market last week. More: 04/09/14 Advanced Television - More Roku owners than Apple TV owners use OTT and 04/09/14 Multichannel News - Roku Tops Apple TV In OTT Usage: Study and Qwilt 04/04/14 - Amazon Rising – Amazon’s Streaming Video Surpasses Hulu and Apple

Mobile posts Dominate TV chatter on Facebook

As the battle for control of social media in and around the television between Facebook and Twitter continues, a report released today by Facebook in partnership with SecondSync, a social TV analytics provider shows that up to a 25% of television viewers post (on Facebook) about programs that are watching. Up until now the assumption was that most activity took place pre or post the shows airing and not in real time. Additionally the survey uncovered that 80% of TV-related chatter on the social network comes from a mobile device.

Other relevant findings from the analysis of real-time patterns and types of engagement included:

Real-time interactions: TV-related Facebook interactions happen during the show airing.

• Widespread reach: The scale of TV-related chatter seen on Facebook corresponds to the broad reach of the social network. Shows such as the Sound of Music Live and Breaking Bad generate 7.34 million and 4.47 million audience interactions respectively.
• Mobile engagement: 80 per cent of TV-related chatter on Facebook is generated from mobile devices.
• Multiple interaction opportunities. Posts are most closely aligned to real-time TV ‘events’; the bulk of TV conversations are contained in Comments; Likes have a long tail of engagement.

Accounding to SecondSync, they plan to continue to work closely with Facebook. Areas of future research will include investigating the extent to which Facebook drives TV tune-in, measuring the reach of TV-related interactions, and looking at the effectiveness of Facebook calls to action in TV advertising.

are contained in Comments; Likes have a long tail of engagement. MORE: Secondsync.com Feburary 2014 Whitepaper - "Watching with Friends"

TV Everywhere Viewing takes off

New data available from FreeWheel finally quanitifies the fact that TV Everywhere is finally real.  Since the inception of the concept, critics could confidently claim that the authentication of subscribers on non-TV devices was failing to materialize, however, in the past 12 months authenticated video viewing grew 217% and comprises an impressive 14% of all ad views on long-form content.

Brian Dutt, manager of advisory services at FreeWheel stated “Over time, we expect that this will drive increased monetization of half-hour and hour-long TV programs (as well as live streams) across all screens.  Late this year, the industry also achieved a 1:1 ratio between ad views and video views which, according to Dutt, indicates that monetization is finally catching up with viewing behavior.  Dutt beleive that all of this is proving that programmers are finally figuring out how to bring TV experiences to viewers across all devices while monetizing it at the same time. As such, the content mix is continuing to evolve with long-form growing most quickly (56%), led by scripted drama and sports. More: 12/03/13 FierceOnline Video - TV Everywhere ad viewing spikes 9 percentage points between Q4 2012 and Q3 2013 - FierceOnlineVideo or Download FreeWheel's Video Monetization Q3 2013 Report

The Fight to Win the SocialTV Battle

 Discussion/debate about Twitter and Facebook usage on the second screens while watching TV around the blogosphere has been at all time highs recently.  What seems somewhat clear is that socialTV is helping to push viewers back to live viewing in an age when DVRs and on-demand programming have pushed down ratings. "It's a great symbiotic relationship where we drive the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, and that viral conversation drives people back to watch our shows," said Viacom chief Philippe Dauman in an interview with Bloomberg. He offered up MTV's recent Video Music Awards as a prime example, a show that generated 18.5 million tweets (personally I thought that was do to Miley Cryus's foam finger and twerking but I'll give them that). The topic is getting even more hype do to the very open efforts by both Facebook's and Twitter as they clammer for the attention of TV networks and producers. At the end of September Facebook announced it would start sharing weekly data reports with ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS. The "big data" being shared includes the number of likes, comments and shares TV episodes get on the social network.

 

Yesterday the antisipated unveiling of Nielsen and Twitter first list of TV show rankings and ironically there was little connection between most watched shows and most talked about shows. Twitter reported Breaking Bad took the most tweets for the week of Sept. 23-29 while the top primetime show in total viewers was actually NBC's NFL Football: New England at Atlanta. The only show that did appear in both top ten lists for the week was The Voice, which ranked number two on Twitter's list and number eight and nine on the primetime rankings.

Initial analysis of TV activity shows that the entire Twitter TV audience for per episode is, on average, 50 times larger than the authors. If, for example, 2,000 people are tweeting about a program, 100,000 people are seeing those Tweets. Those 100,000 aren’t necessarily viewers of that particular TV episode. Nielsen notes that Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are a separate set of metrics to traditional National TV Ratings. They do not change traditional National TV Ratings. But many believe they will complement each other.  To me this sounds like typical audience inflation many have debated with Nielsen data for years. The numbers are however one chooses to interpret them however the questions the advertisers need to ask is, are the RIGHT people seeing this stuff and are they buying anything?

Online Video Viewing on the Rise

According to Nielsen’s 2013 OTT Video Analysis, released last week September, viewers are streaming video at a breakneck pace - up 38% year over year, largely direct by the rapid growth of tablets and smartphones.  The data also surfaced details that some 38% of Americans are users or subscribers to Netflix, 18% are Hulu users (including 6% who subscribe to Hulu Plus) and 13% are Amazon Prime Instant Video users. The report also found that 88% of Netflix customers and 70% of Hulu Plus customers are binge users who stream three or more episodes of the same TV series in one day. This new ability to watch multiple episodes or even entire seasons of certain programs in one sitting is shifting the way viewers consume content and demonstrating incredible binge appetites for programming available anytime and anywhere on services such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime. MORE: 09/18/13 Nielsen.com - "Binging" is the New Viewing for Over-The-Top Streamers

TV's, Bluerays & STB's... Watching You!

In what is said to be the first global study on smart TV ad effectiveness, research from smartclip and LG Electronics has revealed that customer demand for connected TV is opening a "booming" platform for advertisers. Why you ask, because television, STB's and blueray manufacturers are beginning to produce devices that contain digital sleuthing technology that tracks the live and recorded programs that viewers choose. Knowing details about what an individual is watching could better pinpoint which ads to display, opening the door to new ad revenue

Leading the charge on the technology side company's like Cognitive and Gracenote are working with the manufactures to integrate the software into the various platforms. In a interview with Bloomberg earlier this week Cognitive chief Michael Collette stated that the software could provide manufacturers with annual revenue that would boost the one-time-only amount of around 5 percent that they make on the sale of a TV set, which averages around $4. The 4 bucks they make on a set, they can at least double with the $5 they may make a year from the new recurring revenue.

It's Official, Cord-Cutting is No longer a Myth

Leichtman Research Group released its latest analysis of the pay-TV industry today. What did their findings uncover?  Their review of the 13 largest multichannel video providers in the U.S., representing 94% of the market, lost a combined 345,000 net video subs in the second quarter. That compares to the 325,000 subs those providers lost in the second quarter of 2012 and 2011.

In a separate report published this month by IHS, they identified that Internet pay TV is leaving cable and satellite providers in the dust.  From April to June, Verizon Fios and AT&T each boasted a 300,000 increase in subscribers, while cable and satellite providers lost a combined 750,000 subscribers. The report credits the decline to consumers' opting exclusively for over-the-top devices or services such as Netflix to watch TV.  Snip-Snip.... More: MCN - 08/19/13 Major U.S. Pay TV Providers Lost 345,000 Subs in Q2