The Premium Content Alliance’s Steve Weaver shares the finding of a cross-industry survey that asked advertisers and agencies what they’ll be looking for when making media investment decisions in the coming financial year.
The Premium Content Alliance has recently undertaken a survey of senior media agency staff and advertisers to find out their must-deliver list for media investment as FY23 gets underway.
The umbrella brand of market-facing businesses ThinkTV, ThinkNewsBrands and ThinkPremiumDigital, the Alliance was after an updated understanding of what is driving investment decisions, given the challenges facing today’s brands such as inflation, supply chain challenges and cost of living increases.
Steve Weaver, Premium Content Alliance director of research, told Mediaweek the short survey is “rich with information. We wanted to make sure the industry is giving agencies and advertisers the information they seek to make smart decisions – and ensure we have an up-to-date understanding of what is most important to the market.”
The research was conducted with in-depth interviews which were used as the basis for a quantitative survey of the most influential media decision-makers – on both client and agency side – to provide insight into what is driving their investment choices in FY23 and beyond.
The top media investment drivers
The findings showed the top drivers to be:
1. Scale/reach: demonstrating that connecting with audiences remains a number one priority for agencies and advertisers
2. Proven ROI: while ROI can mean different things to different brands, the common element here is that for every dollar invested, there needs to be a positive outcome related to a specific campaign goal
3. Proven brand building: to ensure future vitality even as Australian consumers continue to experience challenging economic conditions
4. Engagement with brands to drive metal availability and help them remain top of mind through the pathway to purchase
5. Brand safety remains a key focus despite less attention in industry conversations in recent years
Weaver said: “It was encouraging to see brand-building so high up the list of what people consider most important with all the work Peter Field and Les Binet have done around brand building and the over-indexing of short-term activations.”
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The findings were also analysed to identify the differences between media agencies and advertisers with the results illuminating.
“For advertisers, the most important box they need ticked is for media to deliver reach, followed by ROI and brand building,” said Weaver. “Advertisers are generally happy with the choice agencies are making for them but are driven by the need to ensure they are maximising reach.”
The most effective media channels
Survey respondents were asked to rank the most effective media channels, of the channels they had used in the last 12 months, to gauge what might change in the new financial year.
The top four options were:
Broadcast TV 83%
Out-of-home 45%
YouTube 35%
BVOD 34%
Weaver pointed out that advertisers ranked TikTok as the least likely channel to advertise with, despite buzz about the platform in recent months. “For all the talk of TikTok having momentum, the industry is still putting a lot of other media channels ahead of it.”
Additionally, Weaver noted that advertisers valued investment in digital video, digital display and print and digital newspapers at higher levels than agencies did in the survey.
TV key to ROI and brand building
A third question in the survey asked about the key attributes that make each individual media channel effective.
Broadcast TV stood out for scale, ROI and brand building, which differed from BVOD – selected for its ability to drive scale and engagement with audiences.
Advertisers and agencies interested to hear more of the findings are encouraged to get in touch with Weaver via premiumcontentalliance.com.au