Helping channels maximize the value of all their air-time
Situation analysis
TV broadcasters are suffering from falling advertising revenue. This is the result of two converging issues:
1. Consumers are far more conscious of advertising, and of what advertisers are trying to achieve – their resistance levels are higher
2. There are a multitude of new channels through which advertisers may reach their target audiences (Internet, mobile) and which provide advertisers with the ability to target specific groups of people more effectively, and to measure the response to their adverts in a much more detailed and scientific way
At the same time, the de-regulation of the TV industry, and the advent of digital and satellite broadcasting has meant that there has been a proliferation of new channels – many of which specialize in a certain type of content targeted at specialist, or niche audiences – or audiences which have special interests.
Those new channels ought to benefit from the same kind of ability to attract advertisers as the Internet or mobile platforms, based on their more specific audiences. However, their inability to prove how many people actually watch their channels, or to show better response rates, means that they are losing out on potential revenue.
KwaziMedia exists to unlock the unexploited space for channels that traditional measurement misses, and for advertisers who know that their products appeal to a certain demographic – but don’t have any effective means of demonstrating the ROI achieved by advertising on niche/small channels.
Currently, commercial television in the United Kingdom is measured by monitoring the TV habits of a relatively small panel of people. Each monitored person/household represents 5,000 real households. What this means is that for every ‘impact’ the Broadcasting Audience Research Board (BARB) registers against a particular channel there are 4,999 real households who are simply ‘presumed’ to be watching that channel at that time.
This system was originally set up to measure the regional share of ‘impacts’ between a relatively small network of independent terrestrial TV companies. Each individual company had a large representation within the panel and advertisers paid for airtime on a channel by multiplying the number of BARB panellists watching at that time, against the price agreed for the item watched - the spot price.
Since the numbers of channels have grown, many channels have been created to target specific niche audiences and different channels have become available via different broadcast media (analogue, satellite, cable and IPTV) the landscape has changed dramatically. But the methodology has not changed to match – advertisers still pay channels based on the impacts recorded by the BARB panel
What this means is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of timeslots on smaller channels that may never have had an ‘impact’ recorded against them.
· A single "impact" might represent 5000 people within a target demographic group – common sense, as well as our more intelligent and industry recognized measurement techniques, show us that in reality it is highly unlikely that those 5000 people are watching the channel the impact is recorded against.
· If a channel has 4999 people watching, and not one of them is on the panel there is no way for BARB to record this figure
· This means that a channel that averages 4000 viewers per slot will nevertheless record zero revenue despite having a real audience of several hundred thousand people per week.
Our research shows that channels below the size of 0.1 BARB have real impacts way in excess of what is reported and are achieving as little as 5 to 10% of the true value of the advertising inventory they actually broadcast. If a solution is not available to these channels, which are frequently those broadcasting to a niche audience, then they will simply fold and the current opportunity they offer for advertisers to reach specialist groups with precisely targeted messages will disappear.
In addition – the infinitely measurable nature of advertising on the Internet, and by extension IPTV – means that advertisers are becoming more and more used to being able to target more precisely, and to prove the effectiveness of one creative treatment, or buying strategy over another.
To meet the needs of the smaller channels (to be able to report higher numbers of impacts to advertisers and thus earn more revenue from their inventory) and ever-more sophisticated advertisers - we are proposing a new way of packaging the unsold (or non-revenue generating) inventory.
1. Many channels already use KwaziMedia's sister company; Definition Broadcast, or its partners to handle their "traffic" i.e. to help them to manage the list of advertisements that they are required by their sales-house to broadcast on a daily basis.
2. KwaziMedia will act as a conduit into these small channels, so that advertising agencies can produce a single tape, and have it played across all the relevant channels, from one instance, instead of producing and distributing a tape per channel (at a cost of about £500.00 per channel). KwaziMedia will produce a consolidated report each month which shows how often each ad was played, on which channels and how many people were viewing. This means agencies will save time and money on producing and distributing tapes, and on preparing ROI figures for their clients. KwaziMedia will make the results available to agencies via the "Other Channels" tab of their existing software .
3. KwaziMedia will provide SMS services (to find out more, to order, text 12345 now) and ‘green button’ interactivity to advertisers across all the channels it represents to further increase every advertisers’ ability to recoup a return on its investment.
4. KwaziMedia will work with media buyers to create new product packs for advertisers using the TV inventory alongside print, IPTV, Internet, SMS, and mobile. Thes Packs will be included within the product offering to allow a coordinated solution that extends the Reach of each campaign and reduces administration and duplication costs.
5. KwaziMedia will use Definition Broadcast’s dynamic scheduling capability to ensure placement of advertisements is optimized against programme schedules right down to the program part and including an heuristic module that dynamically optimises copy against target demographic groups.
6. KwaziMedia will use Definition Broadcast’s multi-channel capability to ‘tie’ campaigns together across multiple channels. For example, someone browsing the Internet for information about buying a new car, could be served an advert directing them to view xyz channel at a certain time to see a particular programme and book a promotional test drive, or someone looking for information about caring for a new baby might be asked to enter their phone number to receive text alerts when there is a programme of interest to them (surrounded by relevant advertising) scheduled.
7. KwaziMedia will use Definition Broadcast’s Gateway to upload advertisers’ AV content to up to 400 targeted video file-sharing/social networking sites. Each video version is unique and can be customised to fit the context of each of the sites.
8. KwaziMedia will allocate up to 20 percent of the inventory currently being reported as receiving no impacts to Branded Content related products – providing a new way for brands to reach their target audiences. Branded content is not currently represented on UK TV, and therefore offers a lucrative new revenue stream to channel owners.
9. KwaziMedia will provide consolidated metrics for each campaign – using validated data drawn from its own systems, and in-depth research provided by selected Industry neutral partner companys.
What’s in it for channels?
Small, independent and niche channels will be able to benefit from higher advertising revenues as a result of being able to demonstrate real viewing figures for their inventory, and provide innovative new ways for advertisers to engage with their audiences
What’s in it for Media Buyers?
Media buyers will be able to sell additional products to their clients based on their enhanced ability to create measurable cross-channel campaigns – and to offer innovative new ways to engage with audiences.
Critically we can unlock unused Inventory across many media not just Television so that means that the Agency has the opportunity of adding value for it's Clients using whichever Media area has gaps. Unusually even an "Other TV"/Print/SMS/WEB campaign simply to advertise a particular targetted show on ITV or Channel 4 via these Niche and hard to reach sources might gain much more for the Client simply in the increased viewership of that set of program breaks alone than a direct brand call to action might.