Month: July 2022

Digiday spoke with Bronson to find out not only what those areas of responsibility entail, but also how she plans to execute them globally. 

The following interview has been edited for space and clarity. 

How did you end up in a global role?

In the U.S. — not just at Dentsu but the entire marketplace — we’ve had years of experience and learning to get us to where we are now with our ability to independently (and then with partners) make sure that our clients and their brands are protected, and are buying media in safe, clean and responsible environments. That is sort of at the core.

But the additional responsibilities around diversity and diverse media spend, and what we’re starting to explore around sustainability, that was a lucky coincidence, because those happen to be very deep passion areas for me. Having been a Black woman in the industry for the last 23-plus years, diversity is obviously very important. And issues around sustainability should be important to all of us. So, yeah, happy accident a little bit. Many others in the U.S., both on my team and my colleagues around the globe, are already leaning into a lot of this.

What will global implementation look like?

The thing that we need to keep foremost in our minds is we’re client-driven. We’re need-driven within Dentsu. So we’re in the discovery phase right now. I can’t comment yet as to how all of that will run — whether it’ll be hybrid or virtual, whether it’ll be in person (obviously, we’re still dealing with COVID). We don’t want to jump in all the way without assessing need first. The last thing we want is to get a whole bunch of people together and then not really know what we’re doing.

What are clients’ priorities these days regarding your oversight? 

The first thing that we’re going to tackle, which we have already tackled in the U.S., is all of the original tenets of brand assurance — safety, suitability, fraud protection, etc. Those are going to be the most important for us to dive into first, and we will have a lot of experience [from the U.S.] to bring to the table of how to do that. That is the most important because we recognize that there are different regulations around safety and around identification in different markets around the world. That actually goes right into privacy — there are different rules around that as well. We have a pretty good privacy discussion going on here in the U.S. that we can hopefully leverage some of those learnings to the global conversation.

Are clients more risk-averse these days? 

Having been born in digital so many years ago, I don’t think so. I think there’s still a good amount of testing. We all know that forward motion [and] innovation requires some element of risk. I do think that adtech and martech have advanced along with ad offerings, for example, so that there are fewer true risks in the marketplace, because of the advancements of adtech and martech. There are fewer black holes that exist.

Have adtech and martech cleaned up their acts? 

Yes, I would say the industry has made progress. It’s important to us to make sure that we are not only maintaining the highest standards from a safety perspective, but also the highest moral standards for what we’re buying. Transparency goes along with that — using not just a compass oriented to content and price, but also use a moral compass when we’re navigating through the marketplace. So there have been some advancements, and there is a really great cross-industry conversation happening right now. But more collaboration is needed…. radical collaboration.

Let’s get into what exactly that means.

What is MER?

As was stated, MER stands for marketing efficiency ratio. Removing the marketing jargon and speaking plainly, it’s a look at how much money an advertiser spent across all marketing channels to determine if those ad dollars were well spent. It takes metrics beyond social media purchases or the amount of eyeballs seen via SEO, taking into account things like brand awareness or customer retention. Sometimes, it’s referred to as blended or simple ROAS (return on ad spend).

Here’s how Dan LeBlanc, CEO and co-founder of e-commerce analytics and data company Daasity, puts it. “What you do is basically take all your spend, look at how much revenue you’re getting from all your spend. So you’re not doing it at that very detailed digital level. You’re doing it in bulk.” 

It’s an old school metric, dating back to the days before Facebook introduced it’s put a dollar in, get a customer out advertising offering, per LeBlanc. Instead of honing in on customer conversion, MER takes into account the costs associated with affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, even direct mail and in-store efforts. 

How is that any different from ROAS?

It’s different because ROAS is a bit more limited in the information it provides to marketers. Instead of looking at the revenue generated by a marketing campaign over time, whether that be weeks or even months, ROAS takes a granular approach. For example, a shopper sees a Facebook ad on their desktop, clicks it with the intent to make a purchase. It’s a click that counts toward ROAS metrics. Think last-click attribution.

Now let’s say that same shopper walks away from their computer, returning later to search for that same product via Google, this time making a purchase. “That buying event would have been captured by both Google and Facebook,” said Katya Constantine, CEO of performance marketing shop DigiShop Girl. “And so you would have been double counting events within both of the environments.” 

That means ROAS doesn’t account for the various touch points or stop and go interactions a customer has throughout the shopping process. It’d be like determining how good an outfit looks based on the shoes, as opposed to looking at the shoes as part of a complete outfit with hair, makeup and accessories, she added. 

Per experts, ROAS comes in handy when wooing CEOs and CFOs looking for a quick look at immediate returns from a specific marketing campaign. But as more brands look to account for things like brand awareness, lifetime value and customer retention, ROAS is just that, a quick look. 

MER isn’t a new concept. Why does it matter now?

It matters now because Apple and Google’s data privacy changes have made it harder for marketers, especially performance marketers, to track and understand a customer’s shopping journey. (A breakdown of what that impact looks like here.) 

With Apple’s iOS 14, developers must now ask shoppers if they’d like to opt in to data collection, being tracked by third-party websites and other apps. Shoppers have been slow on the uptake here, as Digiday reported earlier this year. Meanwhile, Google has been chipping away on its plans to phase out the third-party cookie. “It’s becoming harder and harder for merchants to actually track the individual attribution of their spend,” said LeBlanc. 

In response, advertisers have spent the last two years scrambling to diversify their media mixes, reconsidering marketing channels like in-store and out-of-home advertising, digital video, and other full-funnel marketing strategies. Meaning, there are now more pieces of the marketing budget pie to account for. With more pie slices, “you may not have that direct attribution. You’re trying to see whether these channels in aggregate perform,” LeBlanc added. 

So do we get rid of ROAS?

That’s not to say ROAS is out the window, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, MER and ROAS can work in tandem, said LeBlanc and Constantine. 

To take it back to the outfit reference, it’s still worth looking at the shoes (which, here would be ROAS) to gauge an outfit’s level of fashionability. But it can’t be the only measurement. “It’s important because [MER] is a measure that allows you to kind of set a benchmark for the overall performance,” LeBlanc said. 

Or the full fashion line.

To start out, Digiday surveyed 72 publisher professionals in June and found that almost all of them are using Facebook: A whopping 99% of respondents said their titles had posted content to the social media platform in the past month. This is higher even than last year’s total, when 95% of 127 publishers said they posted on Facebook.

Not only are most publishers posting on Facebook, but the vast majority of them are posting on Facebook every day, Digiday’s survey found. This year, 74% of publisher pros said their titles post content to Facebook every day, followed by 24% who said they post at least once a week. While 74% is a high number, it is significantly lower than last year: In 2021, 85% of publisher pros said their titles were posting content to Facebook every day.

Most publishers may be posting content on Facebook every day, but the way they are spending on that content varies. For instance, publishers aren’t necessarily investing a lot in original content, but they are investing more than last year: In 2022, more than a quarter of publishers said they invest a lot in creating original content for Facebook, compared with only 16% in 2021. However, 44% of respondents said they invest “a moderate amount” or “a little,” and 30% said they don’t invest at all in original content for Facebook.

It turns out that most of publishers’ investment in Facebook content is in ads: 75% of respondents to Digiday’s survey said their titles purchased advertising on Facebook in the past month.

Despite the fact that a significant number of publishers are investing in ads on Facebook, the value the social platform brings for publishers’ revenues is a bit murky. This year, the number of publishers identifying Facebook as being “extremely valuable” for driving revenues is down compared with last year (13% in 2022 vs. 19% in 2021). But publishers still see Facebook as being valuable (25%) or somewhat valuable (31%) for driving revenues.

The real value Facebook brings for publishers is in brand awareness and brand-building. In fact, 25% of publisher execs said Facebook is “extremely valuable” to building their titles’ brands, up from 19% last year. Almost no respondents said Facebook is not valuable at all for building their titles’ brands this year. And a full two-thirds said Facebook is either “extremely valuable” or “valuable” for brand-building this year, up from 57% last year.

Digiday’s survey found that all publishers see Facebook as brand-appropriate for their titles’ brands – zero respondents this year said the platform is “not appropriate at all” for their titles. Seventy-two percent of publishers said Facebook is either “extremely appropriate” or “appropriate” for their titles’ brands this year, compared with 66% last year.

While the position isn’t new — one fractional CMO said he had been working with brands in that capacity for nearly eight years — it’s getting a bit more attention recently, according to those who’ve worked as fractional CMOs and say they’ve gotten more requests recently as well as industry analysts. 

“There are a couple reasons the fractional CMO may be more common now,” said David Camp, co-founder and partner at brand consultancy Metaforce, adding that he’s served as a fractional CMO before. “The turnover rate for CMOs is pretty high. The marketing leader is the one that gets the blame for slow or no growth — whether it’s a marketing problem or not they get the blame. There’s lots of churn [in the role] and companies may not want to get a new CMO until they’ve figured out their strategy. Or it could be economical.” 

Nick Primola evp and head of the ANA’s CMO global growth council, echoed that sentiment: “It’s been going on for a while in different forms. There’s more structure to it now. More visibility and growth over the last couple of years.” 

Tenure for a fractional CMO position varies but is typically somewhere between six to nine months. Types of brands that use a fractional CMO also vary. More established brands may be looking for an interim CMO or a second set of eyes to work with a less-seasoned CMO. Upstarts, meanwhile, may be on the hunt for a full-time CMO but recognize they need help to build marketing capabilities in the meantime.

With CFOs more in control, especially over the pandemic, budgets got tighter and marketers were under more pressure. That will likely continue with a looming recession. Of course, that’s one of a number of issues CMOs continue to face including tenure, expanded roles, data privacy shifts and more.

While Camp has seen requests for fractional CMOs increase in recent years he believes it’s more about a shift in how marketing organizations function now — they’re “more fluid, less traditional than they used to be” as well as the hybrid work environment — than a total increase in the need for the role. Others say the talent market due to the hybrid work environment has made it more difficult for companies to hire management talent now, making the possible need to tap fractional or part-time CMOs more necessary.

At the same time, it’s important that fractional CMOs be integrated into the organization during their contract lengths, according to fractional CMOs.

“There’s a big difference between a fractional CMO and a freelancer or consultant,” explained Eli Pakier, fractional chief strategy and chief marketing officer, The Field Trip Department.

“A consultant has a mercenary connotation. You swoop in, make recommendations and get out. A fractional CMO shares emails, compliance, tech. You remove lines between being an external partner and being part of the management team. You feel like you’re part of that company.” 

That can make the role difficult to navigate for some. One fractional CMO who requested anonymity explained that “You have a scope and as you dig deeper, you unearth different problems with the business, more that needs to be solved. Do I solve those problems or someone else in the organization does it? There’s not a right or wrong answer but it’s weird when a consultant becomes your boss.” 

Whether a company will use a fractional CMO — and whether it becomes more of a common position — will likely come down to how the C-Suite views the CMO position and that’s something that continues to fluctuate. 

“It all comes down to how the CEO thinks of marketing,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, vp and principal analyst at Forrester. “If marketing is a vital organ of the company, the repository of all customer knowledge, endowed with stewardship of that most valuable asset — brand equity — then the idea of having anything less than a wholly committed leader is ludicrous.” 

Chatterjee continued: “Is it in the enterprise’s interest for the builder of the long-term brand and the nurturer of customer lifetime value to be fractional? Can a fractional CMO be an equal partner in the suite of a CEO’s trusted advisers? Can a customer-obsessed company thrive with a fractional marketing leader? My guess, on all three counts, is no.”

3 Questions with Jay Wolff, svp of revenue and partnerships at KERV Interactive

Talk to me about the future of shopping or “shoppifying” digital video. Why does it matter to marketers?

We’re at an inflection point. Retail e-commerce is going to be over $1 trillion this year. And you also have advertisers spending in video. Almost $63 billion will be spent in online video this year. Both video and e-commerce are exploding. Video is such a core component of marketer strategies, and really video has always been an upper funnel tactic. There’s a potential recession approaching and advertisers and marketers are going to need to have the most bang for their buck. Through technology automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, we can basically connect the dots between the content and the commerce through that interactive precision.

As it becomes increasingly important to marketers, how is your team marketing yourselves to clients? 

Obviously, there’s a lot of noise in the marketplace. We are trying to educate the marketplace on the future of video commerce. That’s one of our core tenets is to educate, inform, and allow these marketers, agencies and publishers to see that there are ways to make content work harder. We are trying to think out of the box. So we bought hoodies for our clients. We’re all about thought leadership and white papers.

What do you think the future shoppable video looks like?

The trend was to make traditional push online ad formats more shoppable. Within the next 12 to 24 months, that’s going to grow with speed. CPG and retail, two verticals where shoppable are core components, shoppable media will be part of every plan. It’s all about this tandem, commerce and video coming together. and the companies that can help marketers thrive under that guise and have real technology behind it will be the winners. — Kimeko McCoy

By the numbers

As Apple and Google data privacy initiatives have hampered attribution, marketers have ramped up efforts to build online communities in hopes of boosting brand awareness and retaining shopper attention. However, new research from ad agency R/GA reveals that brand community initiatives and reward programs aren’t as incentivizing as marketers may think. Find details from the report below:

• 21%, or about one in five customers, are a member of brand community initiatives and communities have little impact on satisfaction.
• Less than a third (32%) of survey respondents strongly agree that they are rewarded with things that matter to them.
• More than 70% of attributes that contribute to customer satisfaction are linked to customer confidence, according to the survey.  — Kimeko McCoy

Quote of the week

“[Brands have] got to be part of real systemic change, whether that’s money, whether that’s corporate policy, whether that’s withdrawing support [for political candidates who do otherwise]. They can’t get on the right side of this issue without taking a risk.”

— Jess Weiner, founder and CEO of Talk to Jess, a strategy and consulting company on why brand strategists are revisiting the idea of brand purpose in a post-Roe vs. Wade society.

What we’ve covered

• The cases for and against Netflix picking Microsoft to power its advertising business
• Outback wants to reach younger diners through NFTs and college sports
• Lipton is looking to be ‘relevant for millennials and Gen Z’

Consider the privacy regulation moves of the past couple months. The recently introduced American Data Privacy and Protection Act is the latest congressional bill proposing a federal privacy law in the U.S. The California Privacy Protection Agency released a draft of proposed regulations for enforcing California’s privacy law. Europe has passed the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, each of which covers targeted advertising and data management. And GDPR enforcement is picking up.

“The canary in the coal mine of what is triggering all this attention is the digital advertising ecosystem,” said Dominique Shelton Leipzig, a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown where she serves as the lead for global data innovation as well as ad tech privacy and data management.

In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Shelton Leipzig surveyed the current privacy regulation landscape and interpreted what it portends for the digital ad industry. Her verdict? 

“With all the regulation, there’s a minefield for companies approaching the space,” Shelton Leipzig said. 

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity.

The U.S. as privacy law outlier

We need a federal privacy law, personally, and we’ve needed one for a super long time. I mean, of the top 10 GDPs in the globe, we’re the only country without an overall data protection law.

Potential for a U.S. privacy law in 2022

There is general pessimism that [Congress passing a federal privacy law] is going to happen in time to take place this year in 2022, before midterm elections. The consensus appears to be there’s momentum, but to actually get the bill and the edits out, this is a really serious effort that most likely will have to be picked up again in 2023.

Global privacy pressure

There are 150 countries now with data protection laws around the world. So if you’re sitting in the U.S. working for a global company, you’ve got counterparts across the globe that have to start thinking about data privacy. I mean, I just saw last week Swaziland just came [out] with their data protection law.

The privacy ripple effect of Roe v. Wade being overturned

Even as it’s overturned, at core the legal analysis [behind Roe] is based on privacy precedent and the right to privacy. So the overturning of that decision calls into question privacy rights on a bunch of different fronts. There are some unexpected consequences or unexpected fallout that people may not have imagined. The ad tech community is going to be very much front and center in the types of requests for information about profiles on customers, loyalty programs, etc. because those go into purchase habits.