Personalizing Brand Media Plans

Fragmentation and technology present new opportunities

Continued media fragmentation and improvements in online research techniques now offer marketers an unprecedented opportunity to personalize their media plans by increasing channel and message relevance to their most aligned target consumers.  Rosetta analysis has shown that simple changes to personalize existing media plans can quickly deliver 15% to 25% ROI improvements, and more substantial optimization can lift results as much as 80% to 100%.

 

The companies that want to achieve this level of "personalized media buying" must move beyond traditional media buying mindsets and approaches and take a bold new approach to targeting, planning and measurement.

 

Getting Beyond Demographics

Demographic targeting continues to define most media plans, but the days of driving differential growth by buying media that delivers broadly defined demographic groups, such as "women 18-34", are over.  That's because demographics have been proven less effective than category-level segmentation at predicting concentrations of demand and profit.  As a result, planning and buying on demographics alone just concentrates your advertising placements in less effective properties alongside your competitors, instead of in the media properties that deliver higher concentrations of your most valuable prospects. 

 

Any segmentation method that predicts category buying habits more strongly than demographics can provide the necessary platform for more effective, personalizing media planning.  Rosetta's proven approach is based on Personality^SM-based segmentation, which segments consumers based on their category beliefs to predict 5 - 7x differences in key category behaviors -- such as willingness to switch mobile phone plans, or open a home equity loan, or adhere to a therapeutic drug regimen.  

 

Aligning the media plan

Advances in online consumer research now enable marketers to rapidly and cost-efficiently field comprehensive media consumption surveys and re-contact studies within media tracking panels.  The key that unlocks personalization value is then disaggregating this survey and tracking data by segment to identify target consumers' media consumption concentrations. 

 

Within TV and radio, this approach successfully identifies target skews at the channel (e.g., CNN, WB), format, daypart, and program level.  In print it extends to title, format, and (within newspaper) section.  For online channels personalization research uses segment-specific visit and page view data to reveal skews by site, section, and daypart.  Using this data to align your media buy concentrates reach and frequency against your most profitable prospects, which then drives more profitable consumer acquisition.

 

Personalized media planning is based explicitly on identifying segment-level differences by channel, and on continuously retooling media plans across channels to maximize exposure among the consumers who self-identify with your offer and deliver disproportionate revenues and profits. 

 

Proven Impact

By combining an augmented targeting approach and a switch to optimizing media placements based on value delivered - instead of just CPA - a national retail bank achieved 45% reductions to cost per balance dollar acquired in just five weeks. 

 

How to Get Started

What does your company need to do to see immediate ROI lifts through personalized media planning?  There are three key steps:

 

• Define your target via segmentation.  The lynchpin to personalized media planning is developing a segmentation that predicts concentrations of desirable category and brand behaviors at least 3 to 5 times more effectively than demographics alone.  Every degree of added targeting resolution within the underlying segmentation will deliver a commensurate improvement to personalized media results upon implementation.

• Use rapid online research methods to profile targets’ media consumption patterns.  Field detailed online surveys to representative general market populations to profile consumers’ non-Internet media consumption preferences -- from television formats, channels and dayparts to print titles and sections.  Simultaneously, field recontact surveys within a major online tracking panel (e.g., Comscore) to profile website-specific consumption patterns.  Be sure to include the question- or data-based mechanism(s) needed to disaggregate results by segment, and thereby identify media formats and properties that deliver higher concentrations of your most valuable segments.

• Reframe your media planning process.  Rank formats and properties for their ability to efficiently reach target consumers, and make these rankings the starting point for all media targeting discussions -- rather than demographics.