LONDON – The need for census-level data in the media planning process “is paramount right now,” according to Mike Bologna, President of GroupM’s Modi Media advanced television unit.
“It’s what advertisers are looking for,” Bologna says in an interview with Beet.tv. “They night not necessarily need the data all the way down to addressability, but they could very much use the data to pick and choose their networks and programs and dayparts.”
Noting that for the longest time in TV, data has been based on broad demographic segments, “What we’re starting to see now is advertisers looking to plan their advertising based on much more granular segments, as has been identified through the digital marketplace,” Bologna explains. “But they want to do that more now in television.”
Modi typically works with some 75 different data sets, according to Bologna, and within each category one or two sets are more effective than others. “But at the end of the day, if you just take Experian and Acxiom, most of the other data sets are piped into them,” says Bologna.
While “television is still television” with the traditional GRP delivery, econometric models are improving. “We’re learning a lot from addressability, because addressability is true attribution,” says Bologna. “We’re taking the learnings that we’re getting from attribution and sales in addressability and we are starting to work on ways to project that up toward the larger business.”
A lot of the campaigns MODI is doing for clients involves targeting a specific consumer segments but not just on television. “Yes, household addressability is a piece of it. But it’s also addressing computers, mobile phones, smart TV’s, it’s addressing tablets. And it’s all being aggregated and measured together,” says Bologna.
This is happening in every product and service category, “whether it be data- infused or addressable or somewhere in between,” he adds. “We’re doing our best to tie it back to attribution, and that’s what the advertiser wants.”
We spoke with Bologna at the Future of TV Advertising Forum in London. Beet.TV’s coverage is presented by the 605. For other videos from the series, please visit this page.
