Beat the algorithm with the planner’s edge

Opinion

There are tremendous opportunities to maximise the impact of TV at the bottom of the funnel, where automated planning and buying are commonly deployed, writes Sky’s director of insight and research.

If someone asks what you do, you probably reply with a funky job title. If it’s a cab driver asking, perhaps you’d say, “I work in advertising,” and hope there are no more questions. At a work event, you might add some well-rehearsed colour. But none of that really captures what you’re paid to do.

Your real job is giving your company a competitive edge. But you’d sound like a weapons-grade tool if you said that to anyone, so please refrain from replying with that.

But you must keep it in mind.

Because whatever your title, whatever your role, we’re all here to help our business achieve its goals more efficiently – or, better, more effectively than the competition. In some roles, this principle applies loosely. In advertising, it’s the Darwinian bottleneck that defines our industry’s DNA.

A planner’s job isn’t just to lay down a plan to drive awareness. It’s to find a way to do it more cost-effectively than every other planner out there, ideally using a proprietary tool, fuelled by proprietary data.

This is where today’s landscape gets interesting. We’re letting the algorithms run riot. AI is increasingly laying down the plans, designing the creative, and optimising the delivery.

In Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns, this future is already here: automated, goal-based planning, self-optimising across owned platforms.

Are we losing our competitive edge?

Setting aside concerns about the neutrality of a self-interested AI planning capability, the real alarm bell is the loss of competitive advantage. If everyone gets the best out of the algorithm, then the only lever left to pull is your budget.

We’re already seeing this in cost-per-click-based search advertising. In highly competitive sectors like travel and insurance, the profit has been stripped out of the market. The highest bidder wins. The only real winner? Google and, increasingly, Bing.

So what’s the solution?

I guess you’ve seen this coming. It’s time to pivot to a strategy—and a medium—that offers a genuine edge. How?

• Through your creative execution – the richer the canvas, the more potential to stand out (X12 ROI multiplier, based on Paul Dyson’s work).
• Through the smarts and connections of the human planner – not just the proprietary tools they’re using, but the relationships and experience they leverage to enable advertiser–agency owner collaborations.

In brand building, this path is well trodden. If you’re lacking guidance, ask Copilot to summarise the work of Binet & Field. This is where TV naturally comes to mind – it’s the default setting, excelling at creating emotional engagement that drives lasting brand associations.

However, the largest lost opportunity lies at the bottom of the funnel, where most automated planning and buying occurs. It’s also where TV isn’t front of mind. I recently asked a room of planners from a major agency holding company to raise their hands if they’d contact Sky for a lower-funnel activation brief. Just three hands went up from over one hundred people in the room.

Yet this is exactly where, at Sky, we’re seeing the most growth. We’re working with businesses to leverage cutting-edge, addressable, data-driven TV to deliver a true competitive advantage.

Sky Media can addressably reach 18 million adults every week, 50% higher than the next most scaled TV sales point (just saying). With a direct connection to our customers, we’re sitting on the most scalable and high-quality data and media offering in the UK.

Combine that with the creative canvas TV offers –big screen, sound on, trusted environment, time to tell a story – and you’ve got the perfect means of driving genuinely incremental sales at a highly appealing ROI. And through Sky’s four million home panel, we can deterministically measure the outcomes.

For example:

• High-street fashion retailer: Targeted customer segments with bespoke creatives – 5:1 ROI
• Car marketplace: Used REGIT and Sky data to generate 150,000 incremental quotes per campaign
• Holiday business: Targeted lapsed and active customers, resulting in £2.6m incremental revenue at 6:1 ROI

Delivering creative and strategic advantage

Much of this work is highly data-driven. Much of the process is automated. And yes, we’re heavily investing in AI to enhance our capabilities. However, for the foreseeable future, this kind of work will still require humans to run the show, delivering the creative and strategic advantage that defines what our industry is here for.

Now more than ever, we need to adopt the BBH black sheep mentality. Following the algorithmic herd, where the only lever you can pull is your auction bid, is not the route to success. If you want to win, you’re going to need to work with the smartest media planners, the most inventive creative strategists, and the media owners most capable of delivering on their combined expertise.

Interestingly, every advertiser mentioned above has refused to add their name to a case study, award entry, or reveal the secret sauce behind their success. They’re obsessed with their competitive advantage. Rightly so.

Matt Hill is director of insight and research at Sky Media.