Tag Archives: digital media

Getting into the Swing of Things

Food, Drinks, Fun? We’re in! Or should we say “We’re game!” When Topgolf opened its Las Vegas location in May 2016, R&R Partners was selected as its agency of record for media planning and buying. We developed a new media strategy that not only helped evolve the Topgolf brand, but also helped keep up with the brand’s rapid growth. This successful partnership helped Topgolf quickly became one of the best new attractions in Las Vegas, and gave R&R the opportunity to meet with executives at Topgolf’s home office in Dallas, Texas.

We jumped at the opportunity to showcase what R&R could do, and are happy to announce that we’ll be developing and executing a media strategy that will support 28 Topgolf venues currently open in the United States. The full-funnel media strategy includes traditional and digital media, with a heavy emphasis on paid social and video.

R&R will also be working with eight other Topgolf venues that will be opening later this year, including locations in Nashville and Orlando. We’re excited to bring our tourism, entertainment and convention knowledge to the table, to make those openings a huge success, just like in Las Vegas. 

If you haven’t already, grab your friends or family and check out your local Topgolf. If golf doesn’t do it for you, go for the great food (injectable donut holes!) and great drinks (Tipsy Palmer). And if you don’t have a local Topgolf, just wait, it will most likely be coming to your city soon!

 

TubeMogul University and the Future of Digital Media Planning/ Buying

There is no doubt that the digital media landscape is constantly evolving. Consumer media consumption habits are becoming more and more fragmented (see image below) and to consistently deliver fresh digital media strategies, media planners and buyers must constantly learn new tactics and follow digital trends in the trades.

It is especially important for agencies like us to stay ahead of the digital game since brands now have more options for buying media; some brands are bringing these efforts in-house. Digital media companies are making the planning and buying process easier, challenging media agencies to stay relevant since the process is becoming more and more automated. This automated planning and buying process is called “programmatic” (fancy digital lingo). Programmatic is the newest buzzword being thrown around these days, and should not be taken lightly. Data and technology are becoming so sophisticated, yet so simple to implement into our marketing strategies, and will continue to be the centerpiece of any quality media approach.

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Enter TubeMogul. Considered one of the leaders in the “programmatic” space, Tube(mogul) has made a name for itself by investing heavily in data and technology. Tube has successfully created a marketing platform with tools that simplify the planning and buying process. As our clients continue to expect more polished digital campaigns and transparency with their buys (as they should), we now need to find efficiencies in time-management as well as pricing. Problem: the digital media process is calling for more time and effort, requiring more emphasis on research, strategy, ad trafficking, execution, reporting, optimization, more reporting, and finally recapping it all to try and make sense of what the heck just happened. To say the digital planning/buying process needs to be streamlined is an understatement.

Along with my colleague, Kris Cichoski, I recently attended a conference hosted by Tube called TubeMogul University, or as we ended up referring to it, TubeU. The conference took place at Lake Tahoe’s beautiful Hyatt Hotel and included some of the top media folks from agencies and brands across the country. TubeU touched on the most relevant topics being discussed in today’s digital media conversations. Of course, they used this time to showcase their DSP (Demand Side Platform) and marketing tools designed to help make our lives easier, and campaigns more successful – a goal each and every one of us should prioritize. There was plenty to digest during TubeU (including some awesome meals on the beach, accompanied by an overzealous fireworks show to close out the event), so we are recapping the most relevant and key learnings from the conference.

Mobile

It’s the year of mobile. Or was that last year? Mobile is getting bigger by the year so it’s only natural for it to continuously be the topic of conversation. In 2015, mobile surpassed desktop and became the #2 mode of media consumption after TV. As much as our industry is fascinated by mobile usage, there is still a huge gap in time spent on mobile vs. ad spend on mobile. Total internet ad spend in 2015 was $50 billion but mobile ad spend only contributed 25% of that. So how do you find your audience on mobile and where should you increase your mobile ad dollars?

How to find your audience:

  • Match desktop cookies to mobile device IDs and retarget users across multiple devices
  • Apply user registration/email data to do look-alike targeting off current customers
  • Utilize 1st party data from partners with registration info
  • Use partners with software development kits (SDKS) implemented across a network of apps to track user engage/behaviors on their mobile devices
  • Reach users who have been or are currently at a specific geo-location or those who visit multiple locations identifying them as your target audience

Where to spend your mobile money: In-App

  • Social
  • Gaming
  • Music/Audio
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ROI & Attribution

Attribution is one of those new buzzwords many marketers are still trying to wrap their head around. In a nutshell, attribution is a methodology we use to better understand how our media is working relative to a specific objective such as an online purchase. It helps paint a clearer picture, giving credit to media partners that are playing a key role in a customer’s path to purchase (or established KPI/objective). For instance, a pre-roll video may be responsible for introducing a prospective customer to a brand, while that same person may end up purchasing your product after being exposed to a display banner. Prior to attribution modeling, media analysts would give that credit to the display banner, not acknowledging the fact that pre-roll may have played a vital role in creating intent to purchase.

Why is this important? Attribution can be used to help us understand the most ideal media mix and strategy, giving us a better chance for driving positive ROI. Now whether that ROI is truly measurable is another discussion; that is why it is so important to be on the same page with our clients with regards to definitive success metrics and KPIs.

TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson said it plain and simple:

Correlation does NOT = Causation

Attribution should not just be placing a cookie on a user that was going to convert anyway. But how do we avoid reaching and paying for impressions against people who are going to purchase our product regardless of seeing our advertisement? Answer: TEST, TEST, TEST. There are many different types of tests we can apply to find efficiencies. One in particular that we found interesting was a placebo test. A case study was presented showing the results of a brand running fake/placebo ads (creative that had nothing to do with their brand) in conjunction with actual creative against similar audiences. The results showed many conversions coming from people that ONLY saw the placebo ad! This may raise more questions than answers, but ultimately, what this is telling us is that we need to be more cognizant of our audiences and frequency, and ACTUALLY APPLY learnings from insights we gain from reporting. If we do this, ROI should increase, making us and our clients all happy people.

Win-Win Situation

There are a growing number of things we must now think about if we want to remain a digital-forward agency. That is why we are now in deep discussions with Tube and other programmatic platforms about bringing their tools in-house. Solution: this will help us not only streamline the whole process (win), but leverage more efficient media rates (win). Not to mention, having a DSP in-house will certainly help us in new business pitches #WINNING. This would cut out the middle-man, and give us the option to NOT have to RFP 10 media partners who do the exact same thing (ultimate win!) Overall, TubeU was an eye-opening experience, giving us a glance into the future of digital media planning, and how it is finally growing up. Needless to say, it was a breath of fresh (Lake Tahoe) air…pun intended.

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