I’ve been involved in measuring advertising effectiveness for much of my 40 year market research career, most often using behavioral metrics such as sales to gauge advertising’s ROI. During this time, I’ve become a big believer in the importance of reach and frequency (R/F) metrics. To me, they’re crucial in assembling a compelling media plan and then figuring out why some plans worked while others failed. They gain even more importance when putting together a multi-media plan and one is trying to gauge the degree to which adding additional media will represent gains in frequency or reach or both.
So, I’ve long been puzzled as to why the online advertising community hasn’t used R/F more often in its media planning and analysis. Perhaps it’s related to the industry’s long-held obsession with ad impressions and clicks as the metrics of choice in digital media planning. Why worry about R/F when you can use the click as a measure of advertising effectiveness? Well, that idea is fast going out the window as the realization sinks in that with click rates on display ads dropping to levels of 0.1%, the click can’t be viewed as a measure of anything to do with ad effectiveness. Slowly but surely, I believe that the industry is realizing the value of R/F and is beginning to view digital media plans through more of a traditional media lens. And, some of the best minds in the industry are making compelling arguments in that regard. Two recent articles stand out in my mind.
The first is a blog post authored by Young Bean Song, the well-respected media guru from Atlas. In this insightful post, Song argued that “trying to build a brand marketing campaign without traditional target reach and Gross Rating Points (GRP) estimates is like trying to diet without the concept of calories.”
The second was an article authored by Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer, who admitted, “Until recently, I sided with the anti-GRP arguments and dismissed those campaigning for GRP measurements on the Web as naive, thinking: ‘They just don’t get it, do they?’ But I’ve changed my mind, and now support the adoption of GRPs to integrate digital within the media budgets of big brands.”
Yes, I readily admit that I apparently had some influence on Geoff’s conversion, but I have to tell you that he’s not an easy man to persuade. So, if Geoff is now a believer in R/F, I think it’s a telling moment for the industry.
I do want to mention one aspect about R/F that I think may have led to confusion within the digital community. It’s not that I’m arguing that R/F represent metrics indicating whether or not a plan has worked. That can only be determined by measuring the success of the media plan (and the particular creative that was used) in building brand sales. But, I strongly believe that R/F considerations are vital when deciding how to structure a plan and critical when one is trying to learn from the sales results of a plan why it worked or didn’t. Again, one has to consider the creative that was used, but it seems to me it’s impossible to do any serious retrospective analysis without taking into account how many people were reached and how many times. Simple, but vital.
Ted McConnell, Director of Digital Marketing Innovation at Procter &Gamble, put it well at a recent conference when he said: “Call me old fashioned, but P&G thinks it’s rather important to know what we say, to how many people and how often.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.