Serendipity moments for Google and Jaguar
As P&G throws down the gauntlet and The Times goes for the jugular over digital advertising, it’s turned into a serendipitous time for some organisations, writes Dominic Mills – let’s just hope they don’t squander it
I like the idea of serendipity, the word coined to describe good things that happen entirely by chance. This week’s column is built on serendipitous moments.
First up, and purely personal, was the arrival last Friday afternoon of a Barb press release detailing the award of its Dovetail Fusion (you know, the bit that joins up TV and device data) contract to Kantar.
Serendipity moment #2 is that the news could give Google (and Facebook, less so Amazon and Netflix) the excuse they need to cosy up to Barb.
Dovetail is the measurement bit that has most relevance for them and if they’re chasing TV budgets then logic demands that they open themselves up to be measured by the same standards as their competitors.
It’s certainly a serendipitous time, what with P&G’s Marc Pritchard throwing down the gauntlet on measurement, and Facebook’s serial fuck-ups.
Is this possible? As I understand it, there’s nothing currently going on with Facebook, but there have been discussions at a high level with YouTube. It’s a delicate process, and each side will have lines in the sand that they say can’t be crossed.
One of YouTube’s might be privacy, although why it thinks those privacy issues should be unique to it and not to other broadcasters beats me.
Of YouTube and Barb, whose no-go lines are the most sacrosanct? My guess is Barb’s, since to mess around with its standards is to jeopardise an entire eco-system, and that would suit neither sellers nor buyers.
The question is whether YouTube has it in its DNA to compromise or play nicey-nicey with joint industry bodies. Hitherto, there’s not much to suggest that it can bring itself to act collegiate.
But if it were, then it might gain a serious competitive advantage over Facebook. There are signs that it is prepared to tweak its product offering – such as last week’s announcement that it was phasing out some unskippable ads – in order to do so, although this is all about consumer experience rather than measurement.
We shall see. To join Barb would not just be good in and of itself, but also a clear signal to the likes of Marc Pritchard that it is serious about tackling the many issues he raises.
Jaguar: a golden opportunity wasted
As it hoped, The Times’ assault last week on brands inadvertently funding terror sites produced a near-instant reaction.
One of the first to put its hands up was Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which announced it was pulling all its digital ads less than 24 hours after the story first appeared. Others followed.
But then, a mere 48 hours later, JLR not only announced it would resume its digital advertising, but was also calling a media review globally.
There are a number of things to unpick here. First, I’m surprised by the speed with which Jaguar/Mindshare claim to have solved the problem.
In just 48 hours can you really, to 100 per cent satisfaction and with such a controversial, reputation-damaging subject as this, satisfy yourself that it isn’t going to happen again? And what if The Times or Wall Street Journal, which will be breathing down its neck, were to discover that JLR failed?
Second, it seems odd to announce a global media review at the same time. I have no doubt the issues are not connected – JLR says it’s statutory – but the impression given is that it’s not. It looks like a knee-jerk reaction.
Third – and surely this was a golden opportunity – I’m surprised JLR didn’t stay off digital media for a while. This would have been a serendipitous moment to take, say, a two-month break and see what happened without any paid (and that’s the important word) digital advertising. Sure, it could have maintained its organic presence on earned and owned channels.
But the key would have been to test what paid-for digital media does to critical measures like awareness, preference, intention, NPS and that sort of stuff.
I have no idea what would have happened and nor, I suspect, does anyone else. It could have been good, it could have been bad.
But it would have been extremely informative. The sort of informative that would, if you were holding a media pitch, make a big difference to future digital budgets and strategy.
Johnny’s in sausage city
After last week’s column on the mysterious return of Johnny Depp and his weird Sauvage perfume ads, my thanks go to a reader who I won’t name for forwarding me this sabotaged Johnny Depp poster.
I hope Johnny’s agent has been on the phone to top sausage brands like, er, Wall’s. We know he needs the money. Perhaps he has a sausage habit to add to his $30,000 a month wine bill.
Meanwhile, long live the sabs. They bring a smile to all our faces.
Absence of topicality
For those of you who expect on-the-moment topicality from this column – and, boy, there’s so much to be topical about at the moment – prepare for a little disappointment.
If, say, Unilever were to say ‘you know what, we’re just going to take a two-month long digital advertising detox and we’ll see what happens to our brand metrics’, you won’t read about it here. Sorry.
That’s because I’m away and my laptop is not travelling with me. I have, however, written stuff to fill the next two weeks. It’s just that the columns won’t be mega-topical.
In columnist speak, we call them ‘timeless’. I hope they continue to make you smile, frown, clench your teeth, curse and so on – anything but shrug your shoulders.