Have we found the holy grail of media planning?

Media planning, media mix and the subtle art of reach 

In “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” archeologist Indiana Jones and his father set off on an epic adventure to find the holy grail of holy grails, the Holy Grail. In a much less cinematic universe, ours*, three researchers from the University of Oxford set off on an epic quest to find the fabled holy grail of marketing, the perfect media plan. 

An oft-repeated mantra around here is, “Reach is everything. Attention is everything else.” Of course, media planning in the age of sophisticated mass marketing is more complicated than that. You’re essentially spreading a large bet across a number of channels and praying to the gods of probability that the bet pays off. Is there a way to even the odds? Is there a safest and most profitable bet? 

Today, there are roughly a bazillion channels to choose from. Generally speaking, campaigns that take advantage of both legacy and algorithmically-delivered channels are more effective and efficient. The more channels you advertise on, the better. Reach — the simple act of getting your ads in front of as many eyeballs and earballs as possible — is absolutely a factor. 

The challenge? Not all reach is equal. Reddit is not Facebook, it is not audio, it is not cinema, it is not direct mail, it is not influencers. Every platform and channel delivers a little differently. People pay attention differently. Screen size matters. The creative matters, too. 

So how do you choose? How do you make the best bet possible? 

Is there a holy grail of media planning? The good news is that we’re starting to get a glimmer of an answer to that very valuable question. 

(We’re gleefully diving into the weeds a bit here. If you enjoy weeds, awesome. If not, we’ll meet you at the “what does any of this mean for you” section below.) 

Recently-ish, J. Jason Bell, Felipe Thomaz and Andrew Stephen of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford released a paper into the world called “The Effects of Advertising Media Channel Combinations on Brand Performance.” A fun read; a few of us took it to the beach. 

The researchers looked at 1,083 multi-channel campaigns that ran from 2008 to 2019 from 557 global brands over 23 major industries in 51 countries. The average media spend was around $12 million. The goal of this research was to “Detect patterns in campaign construction and estimate the relationship between those different patterns and advertising outcomes.” 

Bell, Thomaz and Stephen took a big, unwieldy, proprietary data set from Kantar and did a bunch of math on it — Bayesian latent class analysis, mostly — in order to see if they could discover the best possible media mix. And they did. Sort of. 

There have been more than a few studies over the years measuring complementarity and cross effects between pairs of media channels. Does TV, for example, pair well with Facebook? Do they work together to amplify campaign effectiveness? How does OOH increase the effectiveness of a companion online ad? How does a print ad reinforce the memory of a radio ad within the same campaign? That sort of thing. 

This is the first study to look at the effects of multiple (more than two) channels on metrics like:

• Unaided awareness
• Aided awareness
• Association — connecting the right message, slogan, logo, etc. to the right brand; also brand associations like trustworthiness, reliability, innovation, etc.  
• Motivation — a proprietary index of metrics highly correlated with Purchase Intent and an indicator of sales, at least according to Kantar

“Hang on,” you might reasonably ask. “SRH has been pounding the Ehrenberg-Bass mental and physical availability drum for years now. What gives?” Excellent question. These researchers had access to Kantar data, and these are the metrics Kantar measures. Nobody’s perfect. 

The researchers found they could group these 1,083 multi-channel campaigns into seven media mix “Archetypes” based on the choice of channels and the amount of budget allocated for each channel. We’re giving each media plan a name in an attempt to keep track of them a little better. Here they are …

1 – The Broadcast-Social Anchor has a heavy emphasis on TV and Facebook, with smaller investments (in descending order) in magazines, YouTube, radio, online display, POS (point of sale), online video, outdoor and cinema. 

2 — The Video & Digital Ecosystem relies heavily on TV, online video and online display with a smaller investment in outdoor, Facebook, radio, cinema, POS, YouTube, magazines and newspapers.

3  — The Video-First Audience Builder focuses mainly on TV and YouTube, then Facebook, online display and outdoor, with minimal investment in radio, POS, newspapers, magazines, cinema and online video.

4 — The OOH & Mass Media Mix emphasizes outdoor, TV and Facebook, then online display, POS, online video, magazines, radio, cinema, newspapers and YouTube.

5 — The Broad-Base Traditional Lift is more likely to invest heavily in TV, online display, outdoor, newspapers and radio, with smaller investments in Facebook, online video, cinema, magazines, YouTube and POS.

6 — The Visible Presence Strategy spends the most on TV, outdoor and Facebook with a fairly robust investment in newspapers, cinema, radio and magazines and minimal spend on YouTube, online display and POS. 

7 — The Cross-Screen Impact Plan spends more heavily on TV, Facebook, online video and outdoor with smaller spends on YouTube, online display, POS, radio, cinema, newspapers and magazines. 

A couple of clarifying caveats from the researchers:

“An important takeaway is that campaigns are not easy to organize in terms of a few dimensions, such as legacy vs. digital or broad vs. narrow. Archetype 5 is mostly legacy channels, but with a high tendency to use online display. Archetype 6 is similarly reliant on legacy channels, but with a heavy use of Facebook.

“The archetypes are distinctive for using some channels more or less. For example, Archetypes 7, 3, and 1 make high use of channels with algorithmic targeting (e.g., YouTube), but vary in the degree of legacy channel usage. Archetype 7 uses outdoor 73% of the time, while Archetype 1 uses outdoor 6% of the time. Despite this, they are still close because of the high tendency to include algorithmic digital channels.”

This table breaks down the average share of spend for each channel by media plan:

Across all these idealized media plans, TV gets the most spend, followed by outdoor, online display and Facebook. Cinema gets the least amount of investment. 

Which is most effective? As with nearly everything in marketing, the answer is, “it depends.” Here, it depends on campaign goals and brand category.

Again, “Motivation” is Kantar’s proxy metric for sales. 

According to the paper, “Technology and Durables shows a clear division between awareness (“top of funnel”) and motivation and association (“lower funnel”). Archetype 7, notably high in Facebook and YouTube, unsurprisingly is associated with lower funnel metrics, while Archetype 5, which is distinctly lower in YouTube and Facebook, is associated with upper funnel awareness metrics.”

Okay, sure. That makes sense. Here’s where it gets a little weird. If you’re a services brand and your goal is sales, a mix of channels resembling Media Plan 5 seems to be the way to go. However, if you’re a tech and durables brand, a mix that looks more like Media Plan 5 could be a better play if you want to drive more “top of funnel” metrics. Category matters.

For CPG brands and CPG brands only, Media Plan 6, with a focus on TV, outdoor and Facebook, some spend on newspapers, cinema and radio ads and a minimal investment in magazines, YouTube, online display and POS, sees the greatest lift across all four metrics, including Motivation. 

So what does any of this mean for you?

There’s much more to this paper than we have space and time to dive into (at least here), but the main takeaway is that there’s more to media planning than simply optimizing for reach. 

Reach is still critical, but each channel delivers on brand effects and sales a little differently. Pre-roll cinema ads, for example, might reach fewer people than OOH or Facebook, but you might want to invest in them anyway because of their outsized ability to deliver attention. People are more likely to spend more time actually watching your ad, because they’re primed and ready to watch a thing. Also, it’s on a giant screen with the sound cranked up to 11. 

Legacy channels still matter, and they’re an important part of any robust and effective media plan. 

Consistent messaging and the use of distinctive brand assets across channels are vital, but you knew that already. 

Campaign effectiveness depends on playing both the long and the short game, and a hyperfocus on short-term sales can be detrimental in the long term. 

Campaign goals matter. If you’re in the services category and you’re looking to boost unaided awareness, a mix of channels that more closely resembles Media Plan 4 might be the way to go. 

If you’re a CPG brand, it’s a little easier. A mix of channels that resembles Media Plan 6 seems to be the one media plan to rule them all, no matter what your campaign goals are.

That said …

The map is not the territory. This paper is mostly descriptive. It gives planners a sort of general direction in which to explore, but experimentation is really important. Also, the map is incomplete — there’s no data for TikTok, Instagram, direct mail and a few other channels that might work really well for your brand. Also, also, you might not have $12 million to spend on media. And, of course, there’s still a lot more research to be done. We’ll keep our eyes on it.

You need a media team that knows what the hell they’re doing. Ours absolutely does. Milly, Peter and Maurice have delivered outsized results for clients time and time again. They choose wisely. 

We’ll let Professor Jones have the last word: “We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and X never, ever marks the spot. 70% of all archaeology is done in the library. Researching. Reading. We cannot afford to take mythology at face value.”

We’ll see you next week. 

Sources!

1. “The Effects of Advertising Media Channel Combinations on Brand Performance” – J. Jason Bell, Felipe Thomaz and Andrew T. Stephen, University of Oxford, Saïd Business School

*To be fair, our universe has many awesome movie scores by John Williams. The Indiana Jones cinematic universe only has the one.