A pint full of premium audience value and a Niagara of online inventory

Let’s not all laugh at the exit of the two Manchester clubs from the UEFA Champions League this week. When there are losers there are also winners. Think of Channel 5’s opportunity to increase advertising revenue with increased audiences on a Thursday night when the two clubs play in the Europa League.

I didn’t see all of either game. I was, however, aware of Heineken as an official partner brand in sponsoring the tournament. I’d caught “The Entrance” ad a few weeks ago. As I entered one of the establishments I frequented last night I saw the television coverage and in the background I could see some pitch perimeter advertising for Heineken. The bar was covered with Heineken branded beer towels. The barman turned to me, sporting a green beer branded t-shirt. I ordered a beer.

Now if I ordered a Heineken the conclusion from a brand manager (or their agency) would be to put the majority of marketing money into XXXL branded t-shirts. Well, it would be in the online world where the last interaction or click-through seems to be disproportionately valued.

This week’s MediaTel Group invite-only event ‘First party data – the publishers black gold?’ debated how the industry could add real value to advertisers while creating profitable businesses for agencies and publishers.

Panellist Anders Stenbäck, head of online business development at Sanoma, a Finnish media company, said: “Our experience in the Netherlands is that agency trading desks are a growing issue. We are asked all the time what increased value of audience can we give clients versus Facebook and Google. Some agencies want us to suggest the creative idea too.”

From the floor, Future Publishing’s Rob Brett added: “Agency trading desks are re-targeting desks”… meaning that agencies are buying data in a cost effective way and focusing on re-targeting the audience across sites with similar context. Steve Hasker, president of media products and advertiser solutions at Nielsen, commented that “there is too much inventory and not enough privileged access to the hard to reach audiences”.

However, Petteri Vainikka, VP marketing at enreach, said: “Publishers are not getting the value they deserve.” There are real opportunities for publishers, especially niche ones with valuable audiences. They are sitting on a wealth of first party data. The content is engaging and the audience are happy to share information about themselves with sites that interest them. However, many seem to be losing value in the exchange with trading desks.

Let’s take a hypothetical case such as Yachting World – a highly targeted and valuable upscale audience with a well-defined interest. The trading of data for agencies to re-target should be at a premium. How to price it correctly is another matter. Would you not pay a handsome bounty for a qualified sales lead that led to a purchase?

Stenbäck reinforced this example with a case study of his own. They have a good partnership with BMW but there is a real difference in how value is perceived. Agents for BMW want to negotiate a €25 rate for each test drive. Stenbäck is far more bullish, citing €1000 for a qualified potential customer wanting to test drive a 7 series BMW. Nigel Edmund-Jones from the Rubicon Project interjected – “you have a classic auction issue. Engage with Mercedes too. The person who values it will buy it.”

Douglas McArthur, chairman of UKOM said: “We need to move the debate on. Agencies want to get a premium audience but not pay a premium. If this happens there will be no or limited investment back into content.”

James Smythe (also from UKOM) added: “As humans we don’t deal well with complexity. Scale and simplicity win the day and if you can get uniformity and scale the money will follow.”

If you can segment your audience and maintain some reasonable scale you should get a higher price. Increased relevancy is likely to increase brand lift and click-throughs.

In the meantime, Heineken has just been announced as the latest big brand partner with Facebook. Heineken’s Facebook page has 4.6 million fans and both companies will seek to build the relationship between the brand and potential audiences.