By Dan Hojnik, general manager, Involved Media
It’s a tale as old as time, the one where media folk flock to the new and shiny regardless of the audience or the impact it might have for brands. It’s called “agency confirmation bias” and is an issue for marketers right now because of the increasing fragmentation of the media landscape. It is more important than ever for marketers to understand that new and shiny doesn’t necessarily mean effective audience reach and impact.
People are swayed by their cognitive biases, and strategists, planners and buyers are not an exception. In their case, agency confirmation bias manifests as a tendency to give recommendations that are consistent with their existing behaviours and beliefs.
Overcoming this bias isn’t about saying “no” to new and exciting advertising media, it’s about making informed decisions about which media best meets your brand objectives. Sometimes, jumping on the ultra-new can result in industry awards or some powerful PR, and if that’s what your brand needs then it can work. But that is the exception, not the rule.
It’s human nature to favour products and services you engage with yourself. Too often in the media planning and buying, that creates bias. When FM radio launched here in the 1980s, the media dollars flocked from AM. The FM station owners were smart: they worked very hard to reach and engage with the young media planners and buyers who were listening to their stations. Never mind that the audience shares of the FM stations were low; they captured a disproportionate share of radio ad dollars because they were new, shiny and – most importantly – popular with the people making the planning and buying decisions.
When Who magazine launched in 1992, it didn’t generate big sales initially. But it raked in the ad dollars because it appealed strongly to young media planners and buyers. It took some years for Who’s circulation to justify its share of the magazine ad market (although it did get there!).
Similarly, in the early days of programmatic digital display, marketers and agencies were quick to get on board, so quick that they were not sure what the quality of inventory they were buying was. Transparency and verification were necessary, but the market and its planner buyers jumped at the shiny new opportunity without really understanding how to quality control to deliver effectively or safely for a brand.
In order to work more effectively with your agency, now and into the future, you must not be afraid to challenge their agency confirmation bias. Here are some simple steps to help curb bias:
Step 1. Understand the state of play
Understanding and keeping abreast of the state of play as it evolves (more frequently now than ever) is the most important step to keep your agencies focussed and unbiased. If you understand the state of play and keep updated, there is less a chance you will succumb to your agency’s confirmation bias.
During the pandemic, advertisers recalibrated their channel strategies around consumers’ COVID-related behaviour. For some, that meant skewing investment significantly toward in-home media, fuelled by state-wide lockdowns in Australia.
But while the pandemic pushed consumers toward in-home media, it is important to maintain perspective on exactly what media consumers are spending their time with versus the amount invested in those channels by advertisers.
Recently we have seen a resurgence of the agency confirmation gap, that is ad spend versus people’s media consumption. In this graph from GWI and WARC, which is based on forecast ad spending in 2022, a number above 100 indicates that the medium’s ad spend is larger than its share of consumption (less efficient audience reach), and a number below 100 indicates the inverse (more efficient audience reach).
The graph demonstrates which media are getting a disproportionate share of ad spending relative to their share of consumers’ total media consumption – and the media that are not getting their fair share. Linear TV, for example, punches well below its weight, as does social media, while podcasts, online radio and others should be getting a bigger slice of ad spending based on the time people are spending with them.
Step 2: Understand the media market implications
There are two different implications for the media market. On the one hand, the above graph tells us where marketers and their agencies are overinvesting relative to audience consumption. On the flip side we can see that the channels which are being under invested in represent a great opportunity for improved efficiency and effectiveness, delivering audience and affordability.
These are the channels which, if considered, can be a good place for advertisers to stand out from their competitors and remain relatively cost effective in relation to their consumption and the reach they can deliver for your brand.
Step 3: Adapt with “positive disproportion”
To improve efficiency and effectiveness, your media mix must diversify by taking advantage of the channels that deliver higher audience share but have lower media channel share invested. The specifics will be different for every brand and its audience, but it presents a quick exercise to complete with your agency.
For example, looking at a mass-market product scenario, for example, an FMCG brand that is targeting grocery buyers, you should think about how audio can play a role in your channel strategy. Linear radio and digital audio deliver significant audience volumes, yet the amount advertisers are investing is lower than the share of consumer time.
For some brands, investing heavily in channels where the gap exists is a necessity. The cost of entry for some media – such as linear TV – can be too prohibitive given the audiences they now deliver. In those cases, it is more important than ever for that media to work as hard as possible. Creative has never been more important to stand out among a growing pool of advertisers across linear TV and social media and it will be the deciding factor when it comes the effectiveness and profitability of your advertising.
Given the constant emergence of new media products and consumers’ declining attention spans, it’s no wonder that reaching the same amount of people gets harder and harder every year. Now is the time you need your agency to look beyond the new and shiny and figure out what media channel is the best fit for your brand objectives. Agency confirmation bias has no place in that work. Worse, it is potentially dangerous.
Marketers who don’t take advantage of the positive disproportion opportunities risk media budgets delivering significantly less returns than anticipated based on the past few years. This window to take advantage of some media’s audience volume at an efficient cost will not last forever, and if you don’t diversify you mix, your competitors and their agency’s just might curb their bias quicker than yours.
See Also: Involved Media appoints Dan Hojnik as general manager