What opportunities does the growth of digital audio present? 

In the following session, Global’s Director of Group Strategy, Mark Hatwell, and DAX Strategy Director, Faye McDowall, built on the digital audio points made by Payton. They discussed how Global is using A.I. to evolve its digital radio offering, DAX, by building target audiences and considering how digital audio can be tracked via brand uplift studies.  

 Finally, we heard from Orlando Wood, Chief Innovation Officer at System 1, who discussed System 1’s research in Emotion and Effective Advertising. System 1 can now test audio ads with real emotion tracking, which analyses how different parts of the brain are affected by a brand’s radio creative. This enables advertisers to predict both the short and long-term effectiveness of a radio ad.  

The growth of digital audio is particularly important for some our clients who have already tested the waters with linear radio. With more options now available across the likes of DAX and Octave such as niche demographics and lookalike audiences or interest/hobbies targeting. For the right audiences or campaigns, this seems like the natural next step for them to look at testing.  

Celebrations were to be had for our whole team as MI Media was awarded the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Effectiveness Accreditation for 2023-25!

Effectiveness is something we strive for in everything we do for our clients, our people and our business, so to be recognised as an agency that is “setting the benchmark everyone should aspire to” is an incredible honour.

Setting out on our journey to achieve effectiveness accreditation, we strived to display our results but also our commitment to industry best practice. Whilst our desire for IPA effectiveness accreditation stemmed from receiving not one but two IPA effectiveness awards within the last five years, we understand the value in advertising effectiveness and how it drives our continuous efforts to accelerate client growth.

In order to deliver for our clients, it is crucial to us that we also focus internally and allow our people to excel. Now we can reap the rewards of what the IPA has to offer. Whether that’s having access to vital insights and datasets at the tip of our fingers or being able to home in on the importance of CPD, our accreditation means that we will continue to develop as media professionals whilst also amplifying client growth.

Effectiveness is a journey rather than a fixed destination. Marketing effectiveness has always been at the heart of MI’s proposition and will continue to be so as we evolve.

MI Media Business Director, Kelly Kershaw, recently attended Campaign’s brilliantly curated event ‘TV: The Next Episode’ which explored the most pressing issues facing the TV advertising industry. Here she shares her key learnings from the event. 

Like your favourite TV show, I was buzzing for this next episode! Is TV dead? Who killed it? How is it all going to end? Well, spoiler alert… I can tell you it is certainly not dead. In fact, I am convinced that it remains the most exciting, innovative, and bad-ass medium there is. 

Oliver Shayer, Media Director at Boots, kicked off the day by explaining why TV remains so integral to Boots’ media plans: 

• TV delivers huge scale at speed 
• Your brand’s messaging is delivered against quality, vetted content 
• It is effective both from an ROI perspective and for building brand equity 
• TV remains the most entertaining and impactful channel on a plan 

These are all things that have held true for TV since the dawn of time, but it’s clear that Boots, like many other brands, has had to become more adaptable, innovative and creative in its planning to address one of the key challenges facing the media industry: fragmentation.  

Clever use of data has been integral to how Boots has faced this challenge. As the home to 16 million Advantage Card holders, Boots was able to integrate its first party data with all the major broadcasters. In doing so, it has seen a four-fold uplift in effectiveness, a clear lesson for all brands on the importance of collecting and harnessing their own data.  

While Boots also has the resources as a big advertiser to adapt quickly to any new learnings, every advertiser can tackle the issues of media fragmentation by taking an effective approach to TV measurement against both short and long-term metrics. It’s clear that advertisers and media agencies need to “measure what matters, not just what can be counted”. 

As I sat watching fabulously entertaining TV ads, one question that kept niggling in the back of my mind was how can we do this authentically for what have historically been considered ‘low interest’ categories? The answer came from Vicky Maguire, Chief Creative Officer, Havas London who said, “we are barging into people’s homes, so we have a duty to be as entertaining as possible. If 76% of brands disappeared overnight, we wouldn’t give a shit. We need to be in that 24%.” She went on to highlight the importance of being consistent, but surprising. To know the role you play in people’s lives and do it well. A key takeout for our team at MI Media is that creativity provides the best opportunity to drive the biggest step change for a brand. This isn’t just about brilliant ads, but being creative in our planning, placement, use of data, measurement and collaboration.  

MI’s MD, Richard Slater recently took part in a DMA round table discussion on the opportunities and limitations in the current field of marketing measurement.

The JICMAIL team wanted to understand better the opportunities and limitations with the current field of marketing measurement. Along with the DMA Awards team, it convened a leading panel of industry experts to delve deeper into this critical issue, launching a white paper which examines several key themes and ultimately provides 10 Top Tips for Minding the Measurement Gap.

They agreed that despite an industry hooked on measuring short-term outcomes and easily accessible digital campaign reporting, marketers and measurement practitioners have a responsibility to refocus the measurement conversation on brand, response, and business effects.

Ian Gibbs, Director of Data Leadership & Learning at JICMAIL, said: “The challenges outlined in our Mind the Measurement Gap report are numerous, yet at the same time it has been encouraging to see our expert panel offer so many valuable and practical tips for plugging the gaps in full effect measurement. From rigorous client on-boarding processes, to the development of bespoke client-specific measurement frameworks, along with advice on not letting the quest for perfect measurement get in the way of creating something immediately practical and meaningful, this paper is packed with essential tips for marketers and measurement practitioners.”

The focus group recommended that the silos across disciplines, channels, teams, and client-agency relationships must be broken down to plug the gaps in full-effect measurement. Too many marketing teams are still siloed by channel, and with each channel targeted according to different brand and response goals, these silos create self-interest detrimental to business performance.

Sophia Walmsley, Marketing Effectiveness Lead at Santander, advises on the importance of breaking down the measurement siloes and providing a channel-neutral approach to measurement: “Within our organisation, marketing and 1-to-1 are viewed separately, but, in reality, our existing customers are going to see our mass marketing too. We know from research that exposure across multiple channels increases the likelihood of the purchase of an additional product, yet our attribution approaches are separate. Having said that our MMM is an extremely effective tool in combating this across marketing channels, it provides a channel-agnostic view that enables us to plan a campaign as a whole. The next step is channel agnostic measurement.”

Industry’s over-reliance on vanity metrics

DMA research has found that 41% of all metrics used to measure campaign effectiveness relate to less meaningful campaign delivery and digital vanity metrics, while 59% relate to meaningful business, brand, and response outcomes.

This over-reliance on campaign delivery and digital vanity metrics has not improved over the course of the last five years, and with average campaign effectiveness declining by 29% between 2020 and 2021, there is evidence that below-par campaign measurement is having a negative impact on overall marketing performance.

Commenting on the tendency of marketing measurement to be focused on less meaningful campaign delivery and digital vanity metrics, Matt Dailey, Chief Performance Officer at Havas says: “There is so much data that is easily available… and people have become obsessed with efficiency and short-termism, whilst measuring effectiveness is hard. The easiest way out is to show that something happened and not whether that something is really of any value.”

The multi-channel reality in which consumers, planners and practitioners now live creates a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it enables advertisers to take advantage of significant effectiveness multiplier effects, yet on the other, it creates a world of increased complexity with each channel battling to prove attributable and incremental effects.

Other key highlights from the Mind the Measurement Gap report include:

• Mail campaigns that include an element of Ad Mail (including Direct Mail and Door Drops) generate 50% more business, brand and response effects than the average campaign; and in addition are the least reliant on less meaningful campaign delivery effects in their measurement plans.
• 10% of the metrics in the DMA’s Intelligent Marketing Databank were digital-specific metrics in 2017. This has nearly doubled five years later. With reporting of digital effects on the rise, it is more important than ever for offline channels to have their digital impact properly attributed.

A version of this article, along with the video below initially appeared on JICMAIL’s website.

All the findings from the event have been captured in the JICMAIL white paper ‘Mind the Measurement Gap‘ which can be downloaded below:

We are extremely proud that our entry for Médecins Sans Frontières UK has won a bronze award at last night’s IPA Effectiveness Awards.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards are advertising and marketing’s most rigorous and coveted and this is our second IPA award (previously for 32Red)! Our award, ‘How smart media investment delivered transformative change for MSF‘ focuses on how we (and a team of clever clients and media partners) have delivered impressive growth for the charity over the last 10 years using smart media tactics. Of the 28 entries who made the shortlist, we were one of only four Not-for Profit entries and appeared in a sea of both creative and international agencies.

Great to see our success celebrated in this morning’s Financial Times:

MSF is a charity who are heavily reliant on fundraising income to support its life saving work. Our entry describes how MSF more than doubled its annual income over a 10-year period in which charitable giving sharply declined. MSF’s case demonstrates that by taking a long-term approach to short term activation, a virtuous circle has been created between increased fundraising income and growth in media spend, which in turn drives income further. These have been powered by audience insight, evidence-based decision-making and close collaboration between client and agency specialists.

Our entry: 

MSF is a charity who are heavily reliant on fundraising income to support its life saving work. This case describes how MSF more than doubled its annual income over a 10-year period in which charitable giving sharply declined.

MSF’s case demonstrates that by taking a long-term approach to short term activation, a virtuous circle has been created between increased fundraising income and growth in media spend, which in turn drives income further.

These have been powered by audience insight, evidence-based decision-making and close collaboration between client and agency specialists.

The Earth’s climate is in crisis.

Global temperatures are rising, unequivocally driven by human activity, and as a result, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and closer to home. Fortunately, not all hope is lost. If humans can cut global emissions of greenhouse gases and reach net zero before it’s too late, the world could halt the continued rise in temperature. And now, with the UK due to host the UN climate change conference (COP26), the carbon crisis has finally risen towards the top of the UK’s political and business agendas.

The government has pledged to cut emissions by 78% (vs 1990 levels) by 2035, with a goal of Net Zero by 2050. Net Zero Emissions means achieving a balance between the carbon emitted into the atmosphere and the carbon removed and is a crucial target if we are to stabilize global temperatures.

The UK advertising industry has also now begun to respond to the climate emergency and the need to achieve net zero emissions by setting up Ad Net Zero (A.N.Z.). Set up at the end of 2020 and led by the Advertising Association, A.N.Z. is a not-for-profit initiative with the aim of developing a roadmap for the advertising industry to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Ad Net Zero has identified five areas of focus to help the advertising industry recognise and reduce our own carbon contributions and begin to help influence our clients and their consumers to do the same.

1. All companies to evaluate and establish their own emissions – including the impact of travel, fossil fuel energy use and waste in the workplace with a view to finding ways to offset and reduce these emissions.

2. Measuring and reducing the impact of carbon within advertising production – with ad agencies aided by the recently launched AdGreen Carbon Calculator.

3. Of specific relevance to us as media planners is beginning to understand the environmental implications of different media types so emissions become more of a consideration when designing a client’s media plans and so that the carbon produced by the channels selected can be offset. A media carbon calculator, hosted by the IPA, remains a work in progress. It differentiates between screens and devices (e.g. TV vs mobile etc.) but not yet between media owners (e.g. ITV vs Sky). And it focuses on end delivery (e.g. the energy required to power a screen for 30”, but for the time being, excludes the impact of content delivery, data centres and web infrastructure. So, it’s not perfect yet but statistician George Box’s observation:“all models are wrong but some are useful” applies here if it begins to give clients greater transparency on the carbon impact of their advertising.

4. Organisers building in sustainability considerations into awards and events planned to minimise their carbon footprint (including travel etc.).

5. And last but by no means least, encouraging all of us in the industry to harness the power of advertising to promote sustainable choices amongst consumers and ideally influencing behaviour that will continue beyond an advertising campaign.

MI Media is proud to have signed up to Ad Net Zero, alongside partner agencies within the Harbour Collective, so we too can play a small part in trying to tackle the world’s climate emergency. By evaluating the emissions produced as a result of our operations and putting greater emphasis on the carbon impact of the advertising activities we plan, we are better able to offset and ultimately reduce our carbon footprint and are committed to the aim of becoming a net zero company by 2030.

Richard Slater, Managing Director at MI Media

“We’re really happy to have started with PGMBM, they are at the forefront of addressing the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal and are committed to holding corporations accountable for the damage they have caused and representing the drivers affected. We’ve been impressed with their dynamic and data driven approach which will put them well ahead of their competition.”

We are determined to build strong foundations with our client and strive to support PGMBM’s dedication to enabling global justice through group litigation. You can read more about our work with PGMBM on our case study.

‘Care packages’ of coffee (when Sainsburys ran out!) or wine/chocolate and kids magazines (for mums and dads faced with home schooling ad nauseum) have been gratefully received by the team.

At a time when joining a new company could be totally pants, all MI newbies have received an ethical welcome hamper (full of foodie treats and drinks) and have been assigned a friendly buddy to help them remotely integrate into the wider team. Our legendary Christmas party (sadly not abroad this year but on Zoom) was a virtual triumph with an eclectically creative range of events including drink and draw, laughing yoga and carol singing combined with takeaway treats and boozy doorstep deliveries.

It’s great to be recognised for such an award and congratulations to all the other companies who have also been doing the right thing over the past year.