Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
As the two brand-building broadcast media of TV and OOH continue to digitise, ‘The Brand Gap’ predicts a new era for media, delivering a balance of branding and activation. In a new report from Work Research, media agencies cite the media that is ‘on the up’ as: Online Video (52%), VOD (46%) and Social Media (43%), with DOOH (74%) the highest of all.
From L-R; John Hegarty, Morag Blazey, Justin Gibbons, Jean-Christophe Conti CEO of VIOOH, Simon Valcarcel, Head of Creative and Media, O2
Unveiled at JCDecaux’s Upfronts, ‘The Brand Gap’ explores the gap between what brands know and how they behave and while Binet and Field’s 60:40 (brand: activation) ratio is widely noted, the pressure of the short-term makes this hard to achieve. The Brand Gap suggests that the digitisation of the big broadcast media may be the answer, enabling activation and branding to be achieved by OOH and TV.
David McEvoy, Marketing Director of JCDecaux said, “’The Brand Gap’ report finds that DOOH and VOD, the digitised offers of the two biggest brand-building channels of Outdoor and TV are the ‘media on the up’, delivering addressable and broadcast communications. Reaching 63% of the population every week, DOOH already combines scale and reach with new digital flexibility. As the Brand Gap makes clear, big reach media that offer brand building and activation could deliver a new future for brands.”
Justin Gibbons of Work Research said, “The Brand Gap’ shows that achieving the balance of brand and activation as outlined by Binet and Field is proving difficult for brands and agencies as the short-term needs take precedence over long-term brand health. Whilst Social, Online and Mobile have provided a new era of highly targeted, highly measurable media that take over half of the media spend, there is a resultant ‘Brand Gap’. However, the digitisation of the traditional broadcast brand-building media heralds a new era of disruption and ‘The Brand Gap’ shows that the media channels that will do best in the future are those that can adapt the most effectively and potentially close this ‘Brand Gap’.”
Key Findings
‘The Brand Gap’ shows that the balance of 60:40 for brand and activation as outlined by Binet and Field is proving difficult for brands and agencies to achieve, as short-term needs take precedence.
- The Brand Gap research identifies the top four media perceived as being ‘On the up’ as, DOOH (74%), Online Video (52%), VOD (46%), Social Media (43%), (figure 8 in the report).
- The Brand Gap asks, “How well-developed for your needs are the digital offers of the following media?” – OOH is top (80%) followed by TV (74%), Newsbrands (71%), Radio (50%), Cinema (49%) and Magazines (39%), (figure 7 in the report).
- Work Research finds that marketing theory is well known and understood, specifically the work of Bryon Sharp and Binet and Field. Despite this wish to achieve a balance of brand and response, activation channels continue to take more and more of the investment.
- Clients and agencies speak candidly about the problems of over-investing in response media at the expense of brand “I can’t think of a single brand that has grown via paid-for Online display.” and “We went too far too fast.” (advertisers).
- The Brand Gap asks why practitioners are not doing what they say they want to do. It finds the culture of short-termism is strong and pulls money out of brand and into response. “We know the rules, but it’s just not like that day to day.” and “60/40 is an ideal but the culture of short-termism is too strong.” (advertisers)
- The Brand Gap suggests that behavioural economics can partly explain this apparently, irrational behaviour. A heuristics effect creates a mental shortcut between sales response and Online channels. A ‘herding’ instinct makes certain channels more accepted as the norm. Confirmation bias leads people to ignore facts that don’t suit their existing views.
- The Brand Gap finds that the recent issues relating to brand safety and transparency have made only a small difference to spend (figure 6). Only 19% of those polled said their Online spend had been permanently affected, while 67% said spend had already returned to normal levels and the remaining 14% said spend would return. Advertisers said: “The issues are being addressed” while agencies said: “The brand safety thing has cleansed the digital ecosystem.”
Commissioned by JCDecaux, Work Research interviewed 10 leading advertisers, 10 media agency heads, conducted 4 focus groups with media planners and a survey of 123 media agency practitioners.
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