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MrKE HESS Data-integration techniques can be useful tools as marketers continue to innprove
Nielsen
overall efficiency and return on investment. This is true because of the value of the
Michael.Hess@nielsen.
com techniques themselves and also because the current advertising market, based on
demographic buying, has major opportunities for arbitrage in the range of 10 percent
PETE DOE
Nielsen to 25 percent (where in that range depends on the nature of the vertical). The current
Pete.Doe@nielsen.com study reviews different methods of data integration in pursuing such negotiations.
Directly Matched Data being in two samples with sampling frac- • Ascription techniques contain the pos-
Data sets are matched using a common key tions of 1/10,000 is 1 in 100 million. sibility of model bias. This needs to be
(e.g., name and address, or cookies). Very In these cases, statistical ascription tech- carefully assessed. Model validation is
often, this requires the use of personally niques can be used to impute data. For essential.
identifiable information, and appropriate example, product-purchase data can be
privacy measures must be in place. Some ascribed onto the members of a research • In the majority of cases, ascription
of the key technical aspects that must be panel that measures television audiences, models have aggregate- rather than
evaluated are completeness and accuracy using common variables on the television respondent-level validity. For example,
of matching. panel and a product-purchase database to a model that overlays brand purchasing
For marketing purposes, databases guide the ascription. This enables viewing onto a television measurement panel
that are integrated via direct-matching habits of product users to be estimated. may not be able to predict the actual
of address are often referred to as single- Data fusion is one example of a unit- brand purchases of an individual house-
source data, but there is a distinction level ascription technique that is increas- hold on the panel, but it will be able ta
between true single-source and this form ingly being used to create integrated reliably predict the viewing of brand
of integrated data as the completeness and databases. (The topic is discussed in more purchasers as a group. This means
accuracy of the match are usually not per- detail later in this article.) that the approach is relevant to advei-
fect. However, it can be considered to be Some of the advantages of this approach: tising planning but less applicable to
the next best thing to single source assum- test-control ROI analyses where direct
ing the datasets being integrated are of • There is no additional burden on the assessment of purchase versus exposure
good quality and relevance. respondent. Because the ascription is sta- is required.
An example of this sort of database is tistical, it can be applied to anonymized
the Nielsen Catalina Services integration data. Additional data are obtained with- Aggregate-Level Integration
of Catalina frequent shopper data with out affecting existing response rates or Aggregate-level integration uses segmen-
television data obtained from Nielsen worsening respondent fatigue. tation to group and then link types cf
National People Meter data and Return respondent on data sets. The segmentation
Path Set Top Box data. • There are no privacy concerns. Along typically uses combinations of demograph-
with the previous point, it makes this a ics and geography, though any information
Unit-Level (e.g., respondent-level) particularly valuable approach to add- common to the data sets can be employed.
Ascription ing additional data fields to media cur- An example of a commonly used seg-
In many cases, direct matching of data rency measurements, which typically mentation is Prizm, which segments the
is unfeasible, perhaps because of pri- have tight constraints on respondent population into 60 geo-demographic
vacy concerns or because the intersection access and measurement specifications. groups. An assessment of viewing habits
between the data sets is minimal (this is of brand users can be obtained by iden-
usually the case with samples, where pop- • As the ascription is applied at the urùt/ tifying Prizm codes strongly associated
ulation sampling fractions are very small); respondent level, the database created with particular brands (using a consumer
assuming no exclusion criteria for research delivers complete analytic flexibility. panel) and looking at viewing traits associ-
eligibility, the chance of a respondent A particularly relevant and valuable ated with these groups (using a television
ANALYSIS OF LEARNINGS AND aligned with CPG items that have broader not be either demographic or purchase
EMPIRICAL GENERALIZATIONS penetration, whereas the technology side based: it could be based on a psycho-
Although the authors have been work- is less aligned. Larger improvements can, graphic segmentation or a set of attitudes.
ing in this space since 2007, it is not easy therefore, come from this area. The implication is that planning on a
to obtain specific learning from every data standard demographic target (e.g., women
integration due to the proprietary nature of Expectations ages 25 to 54 years) is less efficient than
the service. The generalizafions below are The only empirical excepfions occur when planning on a more precisely defined
offered in the spirit of industry advance- the demographics and marketing target target.
ment while, at the same dme, protective of indexes for two programs happen to over-
the proprietary aspects of the outcomes. lap, or at least not differ significantly. STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS
Analysis with integrated data sets and These occasional excepfions, however, Using more precise brand targets than
the national people meter panel has shown are offset by the findings that come from a tradifional demographics creates oppor-
us that if an advertising buy is made based list of demographicaUy similar programs. tunities for both buyers and sellers and
on a marketing target and the programs In fact, one almost always can find a subset improves overall media efficiency by
that its members view, rather than on a that will have higher category consumpfion delivering less waste: better advertising
demographic target, there is empirically a or penetrafion of a key psychographic tar- placement leads to more advertisements
range of 10 percent to 25 percent improve- get segment. This 10-percent to 25-percent being seen by the right people at the right
ment in the efficiency of that buy. range, in turn, translates into a form of fime and less irrelevant adverfisements
This marketing target can be based media arbitrage because sellers do not take being served up to bemused consumers.
either on consumption pattern segmen- into account the amount of the category Improving the media envirormient
tation (e.g., heavy/light category users) consumpfion/segment penetration when in this way is clearly good for every-
or on psychographic/lifestyle segmenta- they price their program Cost per Thou- one. Whether the use of brand targets
tion (e.g., prudent savers versus financial sand (CPMs) based on demographics. As will become an explicit component of an
risk takers). An increase in efficiency is noted earlier, established CPG categories adverfising buy or will remain hidden in
explained as follows: tend to fall in the lower part of this range the planning and negotiation process is
whereas newer spaces such as software and unclear. At present, the latter is the case
A campaign planned to deliver X demo- technology lie in the higher end. in television, in part because the execu-
graphic GRPs will deliver Y brand target Brands in all the categories we have fional tools for buying are conshained to
GRPs. An alternate plan can be developed examined to date have fallen into that demographics. Online advertising-serving
that delivers X demographic GRPs and Z range, signaling that there is virtually models, however, are capable of defining
brand target GRPs wheh Z > X. Equiva- always an efficiency to be gained by being more precise targets through cookie-based
lently an alternate plan can be developed to able to direct media toward the marketing ascription models.
deliver X2 demographic GRPs and Y brand target from an initial condition of having This empirical generalizafion also sug-
target GRPs where X2<X begun as a demographic target. Import- gests a strategy: to take advantage of the
(Collins and Doe, 2011). antly, that marketing target can be based available demographic-versus-marketing
either on psychographic/lifestyle attrib- target arbitrage, it is important to have the
The general patterns observed are utes or on brand/category consumption. right data that link the consumption seg-
These targets are sourced directly from ment, or psychographic segment, to pro-
• technology companies are closer to the
the fused databases. Although it is true gram viewing.
high end of the 10-percent to 25-percent
that if the target is very large (such as all These data sets can be based on single-
range of improvement;
American television viewers), no efficien- source, direct-matched, or fused data. In
• services, such as financial, are in the
cies will be gained; the majority of the each case, the television currency meas-
middle; and
targets worked with represent less than urement (e.g., the National People Meter
• Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) are
20 percent of the viewing populafion. At service for national television advertising
at the lower end.
that level of targeting, the 10-percent to in the United States) is used as the basis
The authors attribute this outcome to the 25-percent range of improvement holds. for the program-viewing behavior. Get-
fact that demographic buying is itself more As noted previously, the brand target need ting these efficiencies in the television buy
also is important for cross-platform cam- Advertising Agencies-sponsored monograph on "Short COLLINS, ]., and P. DOE. Making Best Use
paigns. If the reach, for example, against and Long Term Effects of Advertising and Promotion" of Brand Target Audiences Print and Digital
the marketing target is already enhanced (2002), and a review of quantitative methods in Research Forum. San Francisco, CA, 2011.
via this approach as part of the television advertising research for the Rftieth Anniversary issue
buy, the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of the Journal of Advertising Research (2011). He HARVEY, B., panelist at the Wharton Empirical
of the cross-platform might be based more currently acts as project co-lead for the quantification Generalizations Conference-II, Philadelphia,
on frequency and recency than on an effort of brand equity for the MASB and this year became a May 31,2012.
to attain additional unduplicated reach. trustee of the Marketing Sciences Institute.
for Social Television and is currentiy directing a Theory, Practical Applications, and Alternatizx
REFERENCES
comprehensive anaiysis of the relationship between Bayesian Approaches. New York: Springer-Verlag,
Nielsen in 2011, Hess was research director for ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION. ARF
the media agencies of Carat and OMD. Hess's Guideiines for Data Integration. Advertising SHARP, B . HOW Brands Grow. Australia and New
publications inciude an American Association of Research Foundation, 2003. Zealand: Oxford University Press, 2010.